Rebound
by itzaboo
Summary: Post "Bombshells" House and Cuddy have broken up but still nurse feelings for one another  this is a kinder, gentler Cuddy. House/Cuddy romance, friendship with Wilson. Arlene Cuddy features quite prominently as she's a fascinating character
1. Chapter 1

**Rebound**

**1.**

Saturday dawned pale and bright, a subtle promise of afternoon warmth trembling in the crisp morning air. Shafts of iridescent gold streamed through the blinds of the master bedroom, crosshatching the hardwood floor with narrow, blonde stripes. The sun's glow doggedly pierced the closed eyelids of the only occupant currently in residence in the large bed.

Lisa Cuddy let loose a gusty sigh, rolling over to try and escape the relentless daylight. A moment later, the clock's alarm sounded and with an even louder sigh bordering on a groan, she reached over to turn it off.

She ran her tongue along her dry lips and clicked it against her teeth in an effort to ward off the bitter taste of her long sleepless night. Truth be told, she hadn't slept a wink even though she had gone to bed early in preparation for today.

As Cuddy began to rouse her sleep-addled brain, she automatically threw her left arm across the width of the bed. Belatedly she remembered that she had spent the night alone. Her sigh of disappointment seemed like a futile gesture. After all, it had been her idea for him to sleep somewhere else.

It had been quite easy to convince him to rent a hotel room. The promise of revelries in the oversized bed or the large hot tub was enough motivation for him to rent the suite for the entire weekend.

So he had dutifully left early Friday and spent the night at the hotel. After all, she reminded him as she kissed his scruffy cheek goodbye, it was bad luck for the groom to see his bride before the ceremony.

Cuddy yawned and sat up, sliding her small bare feet over the side of the bed. She stretched her aching back, lifting her arms above her head as she placed her feet into her slippers.

She glanced at the clock once more and decided she better get moving if she hoped to shower and dress before her mother and sister Julie, her matron of honor, were to arrive. They would be helping to organize, herd and otherwise corral the legions of caterers and guests who would be descending on her house today.

Cuddy was getting married at home and if the weather held, which seemed likely, the ceremony would be held in the backyard with the lovely spring flowers scenting the air. All in white, with baby's breath woven through her raven's wing curls, her childhood dream of becoming a bride would finally be realized.

For this very afternoon, Lisa Cuddy would say "I do" and agree to become Mrs. Lucas Douglas.


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

Jackhammers. That's what it felt like. Jackhammers. They were burrowing relentlessly through his skull, his eye sockets, his sinus cavities. There were also several located down along his right thigh doing their most evil work in the ravaged muscle there, sending his injured leg into spasms of agony.

Gregory House groaned loudly and opened his bloodshot eyes. Sunlight was streaming relentlessly through the blinds of his bedroom. What time was it?

Just as he turned his throbbing head to look at his clock, the alarm began buzzing.

"Oh for the love of . . . shut the hell up!"

His shout of defiance did nothing to turn off the clock's buzzer. It also did nothing to diffuse the jackhammer convention in his brain.

House reached his arm over to the nightstand and picked up the offending timepiece. He promptly threw the clock against the wall, smashing it to pieces and silencing the buzzer permanently.

House groaned again and began clicking his tongue against the cottony roof of his mouth.

What HAD he been thinking last night? Why did he have so much to drink?

His best friend, James Wilson had come over early that Friday night to show moral support and to help commiserate with him. Wilson knew that Cuddy's wedding the next day was the last, mortal blow to House's already damaged heart.

Although House had denied that Cuddy's getting married affected him in the slightest, he'd still pounded back enough scotch to keep an aircraft carrier buoyant. What was worse, he continued drinking long after Wilson had gone home.

Wilson had left at ten so as to get home at a decent time. He was a close friend of the bride and had therefore been invited to the wedding.

House had not.

After his third scotch last night, Wilson had asserted once again that the fact that House did not receive an invitation was irrefutable proof that Lisa Cuddy was still not over him, that she was still in love with him.

House had downplayed the slight as Cuddy simply knowing him well enough not to trust him in any social situation. Gaffes, confusion and disturbing scenarios always arose when you asked House to dress up and play nice with the other kiddies. Why would a wedding be any different?

But House kept his other, most important detail to himself. He knew Cuddy was right not to invite him to her wedding for fear of his reaction to the spectacle of the one woman in all the world that he loved standing up with another man and promising to love, honor and cherish him for the rest of her life.

House shook his head to rid himself of this last thought only to immediately regret the action. The jackhammers had taken up their crude work again making him decidedly nauseous.

House stood up quickly and hobbled to the bathroom. He made it just in the nick of time, emptying the contents of his sour stomach into the toilet and flushing. As undesirable as vomiting was, he did feel a slight improvement and was able to brush his teeth and shower while the volume of the pounding inside his head was slightly lowered for the time being.

He stepped out of the shower and limped heavily back into the bedroom, toweling the moisture from his naked body as he slowly progressed down the hall.

What if Wilson was right? What if the real reason that Cuddy didn't invite him was because she wasn't over him? So what?

Did that mean he was supposed to show up? What for? Just so that his heart could be ripped from his chest all over again as he watched helplessly while she said "I do" to Lucas Douglas? Lucas, whom he'd once thought of as a friend until he'd stabbed House in the back by making a successful play for Cuddy?

How much of a masochist did Wilson really think he was?

House reached over and opened the drawer of his nightstand. He retrieved his pain pills, opened the bottle and tilted it against his lips, dry swallowing several.

He'd kicked the Vicodin again. When the possibility of experiencing hallucinations began to loom large, he got off the opiates and went under another doctor's prescription. These pills weren't as good at masking the pain but they did have the advantage of keeping his mind clear; no hallucinations. And they were a helluva lot better with pain management than the Ibuprophen had been.

House had detoxed and sought out another doctor to write his prescription all on his own, without telling anyone. He didn't want Cuddy to know and the only way he could ensure secrecy was not to tell his best friend.

Wilson would, in a well-meaning gesture, surely have gone and blabbed to Cuddy. Cuddy would have interpreted this action as House trying to get back in her good graces and pandering to her, begging for her to come back to him.

But no matter how much he wanted her, needed her, loved her, House was not going to beg. He still had his pride, even though that was conceivably all he had.

House sat down on the edge of his bed. Still naked, his eyes wandered down to the hideous scar that stood out on his right thigh. It seemed to him now that this thing was like a biblical mark of Cain, forever marking him as different, disfigured, damaged.

Like the picture of Dorian Gray, House saw in his scar the physical manifestation of his wounded soul, a damning symbol for the misery his life had become. He was doomed to live alone, without friends, happiness, family, love.

Yet, had he always been alone in the permanent crippling of his leg and life? Or had others acted in conjunction with him to first set him on his path and encourage him to move downward?

Stacey was certainly culpable as well as Wilson, who House blamed for simply not being there when the infarction had occurred, when he had needed him most.

And what of Cuddy? She had been the one who had given Stacey the medical advice that left him in lifelong, chronic pain. She had even been the doctor to perform the middle-ground surgery that he had rejected before he was made helpless when he was placed in a chemically-induced coma.

And now, she had crippled him again just as irrevocably; by sentencing him to a lifetime of heartache and pain with her inability to accept him for the damaged man that he was after he had opened his heart to her.

Cuddy had again been the hammer to drive the final nail in the coffin that sealed his misery and his fate.

But did she know that? Was she aware of how much she'd hurt him? Or was she cheerfully gliding along, oblivious to the torture and sense of impending doom House now had to deal with on a daily, an hourly basis?

Did she have the right to move on with her new life without knowing or even caring that she had permanently damned his own?

House stood up and limped over to his closet. Since their breakup, House and Cuddy had not openly faced each other, talked with each other, or argued together. Cuddy's habit of avoiding confrontation and his own pattern of eschewing additional pain had played into each other. They had both purposefully dodged a frank discussion of what went wrong in their relationship and what was wrong within each of them.

But no more.

House dressed quickly and was limping through his front door holding both his helmet and the keys to his motorcycle minutes later. He was, for once, going to take Wilson's advice. He was going to confront Cuddy and have it out with her. He was going to let her know how much she'd hurt him by retaliating and hurting her on the most important day of her life. He was going to forever destroy her fairytale picture of a white wedding and flowers and music and perfection.

Revenge was a dish best served cold. And you couldn't get any colder than the way in which Cuddy had savagely broken his heart.

House decided it was high time to get a little of his own back, wedding day pomp and circumstance be damned.


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

There was not a lot that Arlene Cuddy would keep from saying to her eldest daughter. While she didn't communicate as personally and effortlessly with Lisa as she did with her youngest, Julie, Arlene still felt a mother's prerogative to push Lisa and to 'set her straight' in matters pertaining to all aspects of her life, particularly in her personal relationships.

The last few months had been the stunning exception. Since Lisa's inexplicable breakup with one, Dr. Gregory House, Arlene had been unable to get her daughter alone to talk with her. She had been impeded on all fronts from not only giving Lisa the benefit of her motherly advice but also in getting her daughter to tell her exactly what had happened that had ended the months-long affair. Lisa needed to give her a reason, a satisfactory explanation.

For judging from the few times she'd seen them together, Arlene had witnessed something truly remarkable.

House, though juvenile and oftentimes an arrogant pain in the ass, was decidedly tender with both Lisa and Lisa's daughter Rachel. He was attentive and caring and yet, there was something else. In his occasional unguarded moments, which tended to be few and far between as he was overly cautious, there was something in his eyes and in his expression to make Arlene's maternal heart swell with joy for her daughter.

For in those moments, Arlene saw deep, unabashed, passionate love.

By the same token, while Lisa was with House, Arlene saw a light in her daughter's eyes that she had never seen there before. When they were together, her daughter seemed more engaged, more animated and alive.

Sure, Lisa complained about House, his idiosyncrasies, his need to be right and other trivialities that women had found fault with men since the dawn of time.

But even as she criticized him, there was a lilt to her voice, a secret smile of gratification as if she and she alone could love him for the incredibly brilliant, hopelessly flawed man he genuinely was.

The fact that he was tall, attractive and sexy with gorgeous blue eyes was not lost on Cuddy's mother either.

Lisa had been the quintessential example for being "madly in love" for she was without a doubt, madly in love with Greg House.

The couple seemed to be making progress together when suddenly, several months ago, they had broken up. Lisa refused to discuss it and when Arlene questioned her other daughter, whom she knew Lisa must have confided in, Julie had been mum as well.

It was driving Arlene crazy. For the first time in her life, she had been unable to get either one of her daughters to spill the beans. Weeks afterward, she knew no more of the whys and wherefores of the relationship's termination as when it had first ended.

And then, just a few weeks ago, the latest blow. Not only had Lisa taken up with her former boyfriend, Lucas Douglas, but the reconciled couple had wasted no time in announcing their re-engagement. From the time of their announcement to the actual wedding had been less than a month and the whirl of planning and activity had kept Arlene from cornering her now hyper-vigilant daughter so as to get a full confession out of her.

But even with other people around, Lisa could not hide everything from her mother. Beyond the plastic smiles and the forced laughter, Arlene saw that her daughter was playing a part.

Most heartbreaking of all, she saw that the light in Lisa's lovely blue-green eyes had been extinguished. This proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Lisa was now rushing headlong into a commitment with a man whom she did not love.

Lisa Cuddy was, perhaps for the first time in her entire life, settling for second best. Where that thought would never cross her mind in her professional life, Lisa felt obligated, as a mother and as a woman, to settle personally. And that thought made Arlene mad enough to spit.

She was frustrated with her daughter but mostly, she was angry at Greg House who was obviously the architect of this entire, ensuing misfortune.

So Arlene arrived early at her daughter's home the day of the wedding in the hope of talking with her, talking some sense to her. But cornering her daughter alone on this day of all days had been completely impossible. First because of Lisa's insistence in keeping a hand in all of the ongoing preparations and second because Julie had traitorously run continued interference for her sister.

Now that the caterers were here and the guests had begun to arrive, Arlene began to give up all expectation of advising her daughter before she made this final, false step.

She was walking quickly through the living room, heading for the bedroom where Lisa must surely be getting dressed by now. Arlene would at last have the advantage. Lisa could hardly escape while she was only half-dressed.

As she walked past the couch, movement outside the window caught her eye. A motorcycle pulled into a tight space between two cars and the rider dismounted. Removal of his helmet and retrieval of his cane from the bike cemented the identity of the rider as Greg House.

A small, satisfied smile crossed Arlene's features. She changed direction in the middle of the living room and made her way to the front door.

She opened it before House had a chance to knock. There was a moment's surprise before an impenetrable wall was raised within the swirling depths of his bright blue eyes.

"Doctor House? Won't you come in?" Arlene said with a malevolent smile plastered on her face.

This was going to be good.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

House, though experiencing some trepidation at Arlene's reserved welcome, nevertheless allowed her to lead him through the scores of caterers and guests to Rachel's room. As they entered, she ushered him in first while stepping behind him and closing the door.

She allowed him a moment's pause to take in the fact that they were alone and could talk freely before she began.

"Just what in the hell do you think you're doing here Greg?"

"Here we go," House said more to himself than to Arlene. He knew Cuddy's mother wouldn't pull any punches. And in the darker recesses of his mind, he didn't want her to either.

"Heard there was a shindig going on here today. I just came by to tongue-kiss the bride."

Arlene narrowed her eyes as she glared at him. "I know you've got chutzpah, but you're not that stupid are you? You don't honestly think that's a good idea?"

"Well if I wait until after the wedding, she might not let me get a grope in too. But I have to admit that I was really hoping for one last pre-marital shtup."

"Have you gone completely meshuggina? Haven't you hurt my daughter enough?"

"Me?" House was taken aback. He suddenly realized that Arlene was on a fishing expedition. So Cuddy had never given her mother any details of their breakup. That suggested a certain amount of shame or, he thought more hopefully, regret.

"I know it's only your motherly instinct to side with your daughter against the goy but don't you think you're being a little hasty?" He paused, breathing out. "I didn't dump your daughter."

Arlene wasn't surprised. She had suspected as much to begin with. But she still needed more information and it was quite likely, if she pressed him, House could provide the answers for which she sought.

"No? Well if you didn't then you must have done something completely unforgivable that forced her to break up with you!"

"Yeah, you're right. I committed the unforgivable sin of being myself. Your daughter could never live with that."

Right before he spoke, House's eyes bored into her. In that fraction of an instant she again saw into his badly bruised heart. He was still, weeks after the breakup, deeply hurt. And if that was the case, then he must surely still be in love with her daughter. Arlene smiled again.

"I know it's nearly impossible for you Greg, but try not to be an ass."

"Why? Being a stand-up guy has never gotten me anywhere. I've always made the most progress as an ass."

"Which is obviously why Lisa broke up with you. What did you really come here for?"

"That's between me and your daughter."

"Not if I can help it," Arlene said as her eyes flashed dangerously.

Greg House had always been a loose cannon, as a doctor and even more so, personally. And though he tried to hide or deny it, he was even more unhinged when he was emotionally involved.

It was beginning to dawn on Arlene that House may have only come here seeking to revenge himself on Lisa by ruining her wedding day. And yet, if he was that out-of-control, his behavior was further evidence of the depth of his feelings and stood to mean only one thing.

"Are you still in love with Lisa?" Arlene saw no recourse. She did not want to tip her hand this early yet she saw that House could dance around the subject all day. It was up to her then to cut straight to the heart of the issue.

House had unconsciously taken a step back, as if Arlene had sucker punched him. But true to form, he recovered quickly.

"Who says I was EVER in love with her?"

"Who do you take me for? I'm not just some schlemiel you can lie to and get away with it. Did you forget I saw you two together?" Arlene's smile broadened when she saw House looking uneasy. "Do you still love her?"

"It's none of your business."

"It IS my business if you've come here to try and ruin what's supposed to be the happiest day of her life."

"Oh yeah, that's right. She's SO in love with Lucas that she dumped him a year ago to go out with me."

"Well going out with you must have convinced her that was a mistake because now she's chosen him over you."

House winced slightly as he said, "She didn't choose him. He got the job of Cuddy's whipping boy by default."

"So you DID break up with Lisa?"

"Are you deaf? I never said that."

"Well if you didn't break up with her then that means that she CHOSE Lucas over you. She chose him because he's a better father to Rachel . . ."

"I don't have to stand here and listen to this." House turned toward the door but his crippled leg would not allow him to move quickly enough. Arlene stepped in front of him, barring his exit.

". . . and obviously because she's in love with him; probably never stopped loving him . . ."

"Shut up!"

". . . which can only mean that he's there for her more than you ever were. Lisa's always been physically active, if you know what I mean. No one could ever expect a cripple to keep up with her, in or out of the bedroom."

"I said shut up!" House screamed. He took a step closer, his eyes looking murderous and his fists clenched.

But Arlene didn't back down. She'd purposely jabbed him in his most vulnerable spot. House had been pushed to the breaking point and that was exactly where Arlene wanted him to be. For if Greg found himself teetering on the edge, she knew he would neither concede nor lie.

"Are you still in love with her?"

"I don't have to . . ."

"Just answer the damned question Greg!"

"Yes! Dammit! Satisfied? Yes!"

House's voice broke as he turned away from Arlene's scrupulous gaze. When he turned his head to face her once more, he had composed himself.

He exhaled heavily as if the weight of the world had settled on his shoulders. Then he said more quietly, "Yes, I still love her. Fat lot of good that does me."

Arlene smiled again and nodded slowly. "It does more good to admit how you really feel than if you just came here to get some kind of revenge on Lisa."

House looked her directly in the eye. His façade was gone. All that was left was a shattered man who was heartbroken and without hope.

"But I did come here for that."

"And now?" Arlene asked, raising an eyebrow.

House shook his head. "I don't know anymore. I don't care anymore."

"Nonsense! Don't be a schmuck. If you cared enough to ride over here on that motorcycle of yours today, of all days, then you still care."

House lowered his head but continued to gaze at her from beneath his furrowed brow.

Arlene felt her heart ache from the bleak intensity of his stare. She realized that when her daughter had fallen in love with House, Lisa's choice had been a formidable one. Unlike Lucas, Greg was not as easily controllable. He was opinionated, passionate.

And that's exactly what had frightened her. Arlene finally had her answer, why her daughter had run from House and his volatility. She saw now that by choosing Lucas, Lisa was taking the easy way out, the coward's way out.

And that was not something as a mother she was about to let stand.

Greg's voice intruded on her thoughts.

"I'm done. I shouldn't have come here." He limped around her.

Arlene stepped quickly in front of him again, interposing herself between House and a quick exit.

"But you're here now. Talk to Lisa."

House stepped back, his shock registering on his face.

"Why?"

"Because if you don't . . ." Arlene inhaled sharply. "Because if you don't, you'll BOTH regret it for the rest of your lives. That means that _I'LL_ never hear the end of it either. And I'll be damned if I'm going to listen to Lisa kvetch about you for the rest of what's left of MY life."

She grabbed his arm and led him, without another word, through the door and down the hallway to the master bedroom.

"Never knew you were such a shadkhen," House said as he shuffled along in her wake.

"Just shut up House. For once in your pain-in-the-tuches life, shut up!"

When she got to the door, she knocked loudly.

Julie answered from inside, "Who is it?"

"Oh for God's sake! It's the Pope come to perform the ceremony because the rabbi couldn't make it! Open the door already!"

"But Mom, Lisa's not dressed yet, she's . . ."

"Open the damn door Julie!"

The door opened halfway. Julie's features registered utter shock when she recognized House standing behind her mother.

But she was too slow to react. Arlene reached in and unceremoniously grabbed her daughter by the arm and dragged her out from behind the door. In the same instant, she took her other hand and pushed House inside the room, slamming the door behind him.

"There," she said with more than a little note of satisfaction in her voice. "Let's see what they can make of that."


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

Julie raised her eyebrows giving her mother an incredulous look.

"What did you do that for?" I'm going to get Lucas." She turned to go.

Arlene grabbed her daughter's arm. "You will not. You'll wait."

"But Mom hasn't that lunatic hurt Lisa enough?"

"No," Arlene said soberly. "Not as much as she's intent on hurting herself. Just give them a few minutes."

Julie looked unconvinced.

"Please?" Arlene was not in the habit of asking. It had long been her custom to give the orders to her children and like a drill sergeant, she expected them to be carried out immediately, without question. In this instance however, she needed Julie to see and to understand. She needed her youngest daughter to give Lisa the chance to make the right choice for herself, for her life.

"Okay." Julie said simply. "But if they're both still in there after 10 minutes . . ."

"Alright, alright," Arlene said, nodding vigorously. Then, taking Julie's arm, mother and daughter turned and walked down the hall together.

It took a few moments for House's eyes to adjust to the relative gloom of Cuddy's bedroom. The blinds had been drawn, evidently to provide some privacy while Cuddy was getting dressed. The only visible light in the room was the sunlight streaming in around the window frames and the illumination reflecting from the lights that were on in the master bath.

A whole host of memories besieged House as he stood there, of making love to Cuddy, sleeping with her and of the last time he was in this room, when he hid under the bed to playfully surprise her when her alarm woke her up that fateful morning.

He suddenly felt awkward and out of place. What the hell had he been thinking? Obviously, with the hangover, he hadn't been thinking at all. He was tired and his leg was hurting besides. What was more, in his haste to face up to Cuddy he'd left his pain pills at home.

His gut reaction was to dodge additional pain, to cut his losses and run but just as his limbs began to respond to his brain's direction, Cuddy stepped out of the bathroom.

"Julie? Were you talking to Mom? Can you help me with the buttons . . ."

She looked up and their eyes met. For one brief moment that stretched out into infinity, the electricity of their connection coalesced between her sea-green eyes and his cobalt blue ones.

House's intake of breath, though sharp, was inaudible. Cuddy looked simply stunning in a floor length, mermaid-style gown that accentuated her generous curves. The strapless top of the gown revealed her smooth shoulders, graceful neck and plunging cleavage.

Small white flowers were interlaced in her dark hair that cascaded to her shoulders. Her lips were the color of rubies and glistened with her freshly applied makeup.

They both continued to stand there, speechless. Cuddy was the first to recover herself.

"Just what in the hell do you think you're doing here?"

"Bei mir bist du shayn,"1 House said so softly that Cuddy wasn't sure if he'd spoken at all.

"What? What did you say?"

House shook himself to try and break out of the almost dreamlike stupor he felt he had been under since Cuddy entered the room.

"What?" House said.

"I asked what the hell did you think you're doing by coming here today of all days?"

The harsh tone of her words sliced through the air, cutting the tenuous connection between them. House regained his footing.

"Came to kiss the bride."

"Over my dead body! Get out!"

"Sorry, not into necrophilia although I did know a guy in med school who . . ."

"Didn't you hear me? I said get out!"

"Oh I heard you the first time."

"Get out or I'll call Lucas!"

House couldn't help but laugh.

"And what good will that do? Do you think you'll see us fight over you? Sorry to disappoint you but I didn't come here for that."

"Then what did you come here for? To reek your revenge by spoiling my wedding day? Did you hire helicopters to fly low over my backyard or release African killer bees to attack the flowers and my guests?"

House felt himself put suddenly on the spot. He looked at her with such an intense, haunted gaze that Cuddy was forced to look away, dropping her eyes to the floor.

Even after all this time, even after all they'd been through, even after _she_ had broken up with _him_ and even though it was the day of her wedding to another man, Cuddy felt as if her heart was beating again for the first time since she'd gone over to House's apartment to tell him it was over.

My God, how she loved him, how she _still_ loved him.

House gave her a melancholy smile. "Those are all good ideas. Mind if I write them down?"

"House!"

She was standing in front of him, her breasts heaving with the increase in her respiration, her cheeks flushed with her anger. Then and there he wanted to kiss her, rip her dress from her shoulders, make love to her. He wanted to take her in his arms and never let go.

Cuddy looked like she had just stepped off the creamy white icing of a wedding cake; as if she had walked out of a bridal magazine. Her dress was lovely, her makeup, perfect, every hair was in place. She was every little girl's dream of a beautiful bride, all in white, ready to marry her prince charming.

And that was when House reminded himself that he could never be the man who could give her what she wanted. This was her dream, to get married, all in white with flowers in her hair to a handsome man in a tuxedo who patiently waited for her at the end of the aisle.

A man who stood solidly on two strong legs, without a cane.

A sudden spasm assailed his right thigh, heightening his own sense of demoralization and defeat. He gritted his teeth, grimacing only slightly in a heroic effort to maintain a neutral expression and refrain from massaging the offending muscle.

He was able to keep his voice even as he quietly spoke again.

"Turn around."

"What?"

"You said you needed help with your buttons. Turn around."

For reasons she was never sure of, Lisa Cuddy turned her back to him, piling her hair on the top of her head with one hand as she did so.

House flared his nostrils at the heady scent of her perfume as he dutifully began fastening the buttons of her gown, one by one.

He was glad she was facing the other direction. If she wasn't looking at him, she couldn't see how this simple act was tearing him up. And if she wasn't looking at him, perhaps he could at last say goodbye.

Cuddy could feel his long, agile fingers closing the buttons on her dress, lightly brushing the heated flesh along her spine.

She always reacted this way to him. Whether unconsciously or not, House's mere presence in the same room was enough to set her heart racing, her skin feel warmer, her cheeks blush uncontrollably and when she moved, her hips sway robustly.

Damn the man. Damn his arresting blue eyes, his tall, well-framed body, his talented lips and hands, his masculine sound and scent. Damn him his unforgivable, undeniable, charismatic sexual allure and intensity. The fact that even with his enormous ego, House himself was completely unaware of the fascination he held for her made him even more captivating.

As he continued his task, Cuddy closed her eyes and imagined a much different scenario; that it was House who waited for her at the end of the aisle, that it was House whom she had already married hours ago and that it was House here on their wedding night and instead of closing her gown, he was effortlessly unbuttoning it.

In moments it would pool on the floor around her feet. Then she would step out of it and walk into his arms. They would lie down together on the bed and she would feel him moving inside her, filling her utterly. His eagerness would only be matched with her own as together they would begin their honeymoon and the future of their married life.

She was snapped back to reality when he finished and she felt his warm palms gently pressing on her naked shoulders. She wanted him to reach beneath the dress and caress her breasts. She wanted him to take her to the bed where she would wrap him within her arms and her body. She wanted him to make love to her with her guests and her groom all outside waiting, waiting as she screamed his name in the heat of passion over and over again, all else standing still waiting for her. She wanted House to stay with her, for them to stay together in this room and let the rest of the world all go to hell.

"House?" she choked.

"I just wanted . . ." he said, so close behind her that his warm breath raised the gooseflesh on her neck. "To wish you . . . good luck. I want you to be happy Cuddy. I've only always wanted you to be happy."

Cuddy felt him slide his hands from her shoulders and turn away. She spun around and found herself looking at his retreating back.

"House?"

He did not turn around. "What?"

"What about your . . .," she faltered. Everything said that it was wrong. But her heart knew it was right. "Didn't you want to kiss the bride?"

House slowly turned to face her once more. While his beautiful eyes shone in the purest cobalt blue, his expression was unreadable. Doubtless he had arranged his features before he had turned back to her.

"I don't think it would be a good idea."

"Don't think," Cuddy said quickly, afraid of breaking the spell as she stepped forward. "Just do. It's my wedding day. You can't refuse the bride's request."

House closed the distance between them in one step, all the while Cuddy's eyes beseeching him in the darkness while her red lips ceaselessly beckoned to him. He couldn't resist. It would be like taking a bite of a wild strawberry on a hot summer's day.

But as he bent down to press his lips to hers, fear gripped his heart again. Once he began kissing her, he knew he would never want to stop. He also knew that having to stop would haunt his dreams and his waking visions for the rest of his life.

Nearly to her lips, House changed direction, intending to kiss her chastely on the forehead.

Cuddy still had her eyes open as he leaned toward her. She saw him make the course change. Without hesitation, she took both her hands and firmly clasped hold of either side of his face, moving him back into position.

House's half-closed eyes flew open in surprise as Cuddy brought his lips to her own, kissing him full on the mouth.

House moaned in both despair and ecstasy while Cuddy echoed his moan with one of her own. They both closed their eyes at the same time as they opened their mouths, allowing their tongues to join rapturously together.

House's arms automatically wrapped around her small frame as he felt Cuddy drop her hands from his face and reach around his lean waist, pressing her body against his. He moaned again.

The room, his heart, his mind were all spinning simultaneously. Here in this moment kissing her, feeling her breasts, her warmth against him, so close together, there were no longer two people but one. And he knew that this was what he wanted, everything and all that he wanted stretching out until the end of time.

He needed to keep this moment and make it last forever, to never leave her lips and her warm arms until the last breath of life shuddered from his body.

But his dearest wish was not hers, would never be hers. So with an effort, he drew away.

Cuddy opened her eyes slowly and licked her lips, savoring him. She also tasted salt on her tongue and realized that the tears she tasted were not her own. She caught a glimpse of the stains on his cheeks as he turned toward the door once more.

He paused with his hand grasping the doorknob. "Be happy Cuddy. You deserve to be happy."

House opened the door and went through it, closing it tightly behind him.

Cuddy stared at the closed door for a few seconds before she threw herself against it, locking it securely. Then she slowly sank to her knees, put her face into her hands and wept.

_1__ Yiddish phrase meaning: "To me you're (you've always been) beautiful"_


	6. Chapter 6

**6.**

Arlene was standing alone when she saw House limp by, heading for the front door. She stepped into the hallway and grabbed his arm.

"Let me go," he said, a desperate edge to his voice.

His desperation was infectious. Arlene's voice caught it as well.

"What happened?"

House resolutely faced forward. But Arlene did not fail to notice the tears that had started in his eyes, nor the grief that strangled his throat as he said, "This is what she wants. This is her dream, not mine. I can't take that away from her, not when she loves the dream more than anything. More than . . . she ever loved me."

Arlene stood rooted to the spot, staring at House in amazement. Gregory House was stepping aside for her daughter. He was willingly placing himself on the altar of self sacrifice in order for Lisa to be happy, giving up his own dream so that she could have hers.

And the depth of love that it took for him to do this for Lisa fairly astounded Arlene.

House flicked his eyes to hers. The raw emotion and pain she saw there made her catch her breath.

"Greg . . . you can't just give up like this. Not when you . . . you can't do this!"

"It's done. Now let me go."

Arlene's hand slid from his arm, grudgingly relinquishing her hold on him.

"House!"

House limped quickly down the steps and well out into the front yard, feigning a sudden onslaught of deafness. He recognized that voice and the last thing he wanted right now was yet another altercation. He just wanted to climb onto his bike and go the hell home.

"House, you can't outrun me."

With a sigh of resignation, House turned to face his usurper. Lucas walked right up to House, only stopping when he came to within several inches of him. For a few seconds, the two men stared at each other, sizing each other up.

True to form, it was House who decided to break the stalemate.

"I can't outrun you but I can outlast you. I'm not good on the sprints but I'm hell over long distances."

"What are you doing here?" Lucas asked, already guessing the answer. House didn't realize it, but he'd missed a bit of lipstick in the corner of his mouth. It was Lisa's color.

"Just came to kiss the bride. Remind her what she'd be missing."

Lucas had always liked House; his wit, his sarcasm, his ability to use humor to deflect or defuse a situation. He'd also always respected the quality for which House was probably best known and had once again, just this moment, clearly displayed; House's unapologetic honesty.

Lucas smiled. He thoroughly realized as he stood there that he owed a debt of gratitude to House. If it hadn't been for Greg House, he'd never have met his fiancé, Lisa Cuddy. Of course, House had also stolen her away last year but he'd obviously screwed up badly enough with Lisa to send her running back to his arms.

So in a way, he was doubly indebted to House. First, for screwing up and allowing him to get to Lisa and secondly, for screwing up his relationship with her, thus returning Lisa to him in the end.

But even though these debts remained unpaid, other, more sinister feelings toward House had come to the forefront of his mind.

For Lucas Douglas was nothing if not a jealous man. And while he would never blame Lisa for her little slip, as he referred to it, last year, the full brunt of culpability was, in his mind, borne entirely by House.

So for the unconscionable act of stealing Lisa away from him in the first place, Lucas felt it was high time for a little payback. House needed a good, solid lesson, a little reminder of who the man Lisa belonged to now and forever really was.

"A kiss? Is that all?" Lucas asked, trying to sound nonplussed.

"Well, since she wasn't offering anything else, I'd have to say yes."

"Look House . . ."

House had reached the limits of his patience. His head still hurt him, his leg felt like it was being roasted on a spit and his heart ached within his chest. He wanted to get the hell out of there. Badly.

"No, you look. I admit I came here with ill intent. But I changed my mind. Cuddy's marrying you. And I just wanna get home. Okay? You've won. Can I go now? Huh, huh? Pretty please?"

"Nothing happened?"

"I already told you. I kissed your fiancé. But she's marrying you. She's chosen you."

Lucas stared at House and then nodded, extending his hand.

"No hard feelings then House?"

House eyed Lucas' outstretched palm like it was a poisonous adder.

"Don't push your luck, huh Lucas? I'm admitting defeat. But I don't have to be happy about it. Now go back inside and get hitched to your ball and chain."

House turned and began limping away. He had not gone two paces and was leaning his full weight on his cane when Lucas moved swiftly up behind him. He simultaneously shoved House in the back as his right leg swept the cane out from underneath his crippled adversary.

Already off balance, House went down hard. He felt Lucas throw himself into his body as both men fell to the ground, rolling over and over each other. The force of their momentum slammed House into the sidewalk, knocking the wind out of him and momentarily stunning him.

When they finally stopped their tumbling, Lucas was kneeling on top of House's prone form, steadying himself with his right leg planted squarely against House's chest. At the same time, he used the bones of his left knee to mercilessly thrust into House's already throbbing right thigh.

House screamed. But once more, Lucas had anticipated him.

Lucas had already cruelly forced his hands over House's mouth, not only completely muffling the sound of his cry but also denying him the oxygen necessary to mount a concerted counterattack.

Lights began popping in House's vision like so many flashbulbs while the pain filtered through to him in waves, each more agonizing than the last. He flailed his arms helplessly at his attacker, attempting to dislodge him but the physical torture he was experiencing and the lack of oxygen made him repeatedly miss his mark. Sweat beaded on his forehead and the tears streamed from his eyes as blissful unconsciousness beckoned to him.

"Can you hear me House? Stop screaming and listen to me you arrogant ass." As he spoke, Lucas eased up ever so slightly on House's leg and mouth. House began moaning in between desperate, large gulps of air.

"Shut up!" Lucas bent low over House's ear. "Don't you ever, EVER come anywhere near my wife again. Understand?"

House could do nothing but continue to moan and attempt to push and slap his assailant, all the while fighting both the nausea and unconsciousness that threatened to overwhelm him.

"I said do you understand? Nod you son-of-a-bitch!" Lucas began grinding his kneecap into House's thigh muscle once more.

House gasped and opened his mouth to scream again but this time, no sound whatsoever came out.

"Nod damn you!"

House kept up his silent screaming. His eyes rolled over white in his head and foam flecked from the sides of his mouth, while Lucas kept up his sadistic pressure. At last, close to blacking out, House nodded once.

"Good, then we understand each other."

Lucas kept his hands over House's mouth as House inhaled again and gave out one last, primal, keening wail that didn't seem like it was within the vocal range of a human being.

When he was relatively quiet again, Lucas pushed away from his writhing victim and stood up in one, smooth action. House rolled onto his side where he laid panting and moaning, his body twitching with aftershocks of unspeakable pain.

Not yet content with his handiwork and in an effort to drive the point fully home, Lucas drew back his foot and kicked House solidly in his right side. A faint crunching sound reached his ears as House's ribs gave way. Lucas allowed a small, satisfied smile to crease his features.

As House automatically curled inward to protect his body, Lucas kicked him again, this time connecting with the exposed right side of House's face. Finally pleased with the proof of his superiority, Lucas spit on the curled up form of House and left him there, a whimpering ball on the grass of Cuddy's front yard.

House held back on the worst of it until he heard Lucas' retreating footsteps. As soon as he was out of earshot, House rolled back and forth, clutching at himself, at his right leg, his ribs, his head. The heat of his body and the tumult of his stomach became overpowering and he was just able to pull himself up in time to vomit into Cuddy's front flowerbed.

He stayed on all fours heaving, tasting his own blood and vomit, for quite some time, or at least it felt that way. Music began to drift toward his rebellious eardrums. The ceremony was about to start.

Still on all fours, House turned to grope almost blindly for his fallen cane, eventually retrieving it from amongst the low hedges. Taking several gasps of air which his injured ribs made even more excruciating, he readied himself for the torturous climb back to his feet.

He shook himself, staving off the dizziness and unsteady feeling in his brain and limbs. Closing his eyes and leaning heavily against both his cane and a small tree, House painfully hoisted himself back to his feet with a grunt and much continued panting.

Once he stood, albeit unsteadily, on his feet, House slowly opened his eyes. There, looking out from behind the curtains of the front bay window stood Julie, a look of utter shock and revulsion written across her features.

House's gaze met hers for a timeless moment. And then he closed his eyes.

By the time House opened his eyes again, Julie was gone.


	7. Chapter 7

**7.**

After giving herself over completely to a crying jag, Cuddy had finally collected something of her scattered wits. While she gave vent to her emotions, she stubbornly ignored the calls from both her mother and sister as they repeatedly pounded on the bedroom door. But no matter how often she asserted she was alright, the knocking and calling continued at nearly two-minute intervals.

Cuddy finally got to her feet and made her way to the bathroom to fix her ruined makeup. As she stepped across the threshold, the latest barrage began again in earnest.

"Just give me five minutes! Just five more minutes!" Cuddy yelled as she stepped into the tiled room and closed the door to further muffle the sounds outside.

She had been looking down at her hands when she walked in, reluctant to see her own reflection. But Cuddy knew she could put off the inevitable for only so long.

When she finally did meet her own gaze reflected in the bathroom mirror, she gasped. Her visage had drastically changed from the perfect, photographer's ideal that had last been seen looking back at her minutes before her fateful confrontation with House.

House. Would she never be rid of the man? Or more importantly, would she ever rid herself of the feelings that she still carried for him?

Cuddy ran some water in the sink. She would have to start over entirely with her makeup. Her first step was to clear her face of the smeared eye shadow, dripping mascara and smudged lipstick.

She pressed the fingers of her right hand to her lips. They still burned. The heat from House's passionate kiss and her own, enthusiastic response was fresh in her memory.

Even if they hadn't shared one last, ardent yet fleeting moment, Cuddy would carry the memories of House's dazzling kisses and love making, like marks left from a red hot branding iron, forever imprinted upon her body, heart and even her soul.

No matter whom she shared her bed with currently or even if she was married to another, she would somehow, in her heart of hearts, always belong to House. Their pact had been sealed long ago, during their one night together in Michigan. The recent rekindling of their relationship had only served to further chain Cuddy's heart to him; with every touch of his hand, with every scorching kiss, every breathtaking climax, each cherished moment merely bound her to him more irrevocably with invisible, unbreakable fetters.

And today, at the very instant her lips touched his, her imagination had run wild signaling her body to follow suit, fervently responding to his kiss with the familiar, aching need mounting within ever fiber of her being. No one else but Gregory House could make her feel that way. No one else but House could fulfill her overwhelming desire.

Cuddy shook her head, trying to clear her mind of thoughts of him. But while her mind might be temporarily sidetracked, her body and heart were not so easily dissuaded.

With shaking hands, she tried as best she could to reapply her makeup and cover her now puffy, reddened eyes and blotchy complexion. This time she used the waterproof mascara her sister had brought. She knew when she first applied her mascara that there was little chance of her becoming emotional when she took her vows with Lucas. Now she was no longer sure.

She did not trust herself to keep from bursting into tears as she walked down the aisle and saw Lucas instead of House, waiting for her.

She shook her head again and began fluffing her hair. She was being stupid.

Surely the tempestuous relationship she had always shared with House was overrated? Certainly he was funny and spontaneous, witty, charming when he wanted to be, incredibly brilliant and, in his quiet moments when there was no one around to witness it, caring and sweet. House was also the best lover she'd ever had and that was really saying something as she'd known quite a few. But what was all of that compared with Lucas' enduring stability?

Lucas was safe. House, never would be so. He was mercurial, abrasive, arrogant and hell bent on always flying in the face of societal norms. House was the great unknown quantity. He would never be manageable, controllable.

Was that what she really wanted? Complete control in her personal relationships?

The eyes in her reflection widened considerably at the veracity of this abrupt, stray thought. Was that why she had finally chosen Lucas over House, because she would always be in charge of their relationship? Because everyone else considered him the sane choice for herself and her daughter?

She had been able, for a short time in the beginning of their relationship, to control House, or so she thought. He had been so in love with her and anxious to please that he had conceded to almost every whim and demand she had inflicted upon him.

But like a wild mustang, House, true to his character, eventually began to chafe against the restrictive harness she'd placed upon him. He'd broken free but did not gallop away. Instead, he turned back to her, swallowed his overriding fears, held out his hand and waited for her to come to him, as an equal.

And that was when she had slapped his hand away. Cuddy was too afraid to not be in control. For only by being in control could she plan for every eventuality. Only by flexing her superiority could she keep from getting hurt.

Yet here she was on what should be the happiest day of her life, desperately trying to keep from sobbing for the love of a man she herself had rejected. And because she was still hopelessly in love with, would perhaps always be in love with Gregory House.

Her thoughts turned to her feelings regarding her imminent husband. No. She did not love Lucas. But there was friendship there. And maybe one day it could grow into something more. But what kind of feelings could she entertain for a man she must always control? Could genuine love exist between master and slave?

Lucas loved her, of that she was sure. His love for her was what enslaved him to her. So wasn't it only a small concession that she would never have an equal partner, that more often than not, she would feel like she was raising two children instead of only one?

Lucas would gladly do whatever she told him to do. Cuddy would always be the captain of their relationship. It would be up to her to steer them all, herself, Lucas, her daughter into safe harbor.

Much better that than the uncertain storm, the vast, mysterious sea of emotion that would always be House.

There was a soft rap at her bedroom door.

"I said I'll be out in a minute mom!" Cuddy yelled.

"It's not your mother. It's Rabbi Beinstein. Can I speak with you?"

Cuddy hurried to open the door.

"Rabbi, I'm so sorry. I know I'm late. But I'm trying to finish getting ready . . ."

"That's alright. Don't worry. I've never had a bride that wasn't at least a little late to her own wedding; usually fixing her lipstick or some such last minute thing that only my wife could understand. May I come in?"

Cuddy stood back from the door and as the rabbi entered, closed it behind him.

"Truth be told Lisa," the rabbi continued, "Your mother asked me to come and talk with you."

At Cuddy's deep frown, he threw his hands up in a defensive gesture. "But don't worry! I'm just here to check on you. Your mother wanted to talk with you but you wouldn't let her in so I guess she decided to call in the cavalry. She didn't tell me much but the little she did say let me know that she's very worried about you."

"I'm fine. Really rabbi."

He tilted his head to the side, his liquid brown eyes searching her face. He held out his hands and when she placed her hands in his, he said, "Really? Because if I didn't know any better, I'd say you'd been crying."

"Oh God! I thought I fixed myself . . ."

"Don't upset yourself. I flatter myself that I am an astute observer of human nature. No one else will notice that you've been crying. Well, except your mother. You can't hide anything from a mother. _Your_ mother especially."

He smiled. Cuddy smiled back.

"I'm fine rabbi. Thank you."

"Lisa, I don't know you well enough, being the rabbi for your mother's synagogue and not yours. Of course, I suspect you don't regularly attend temple?" He paused momentarily as if waiting for a response. When Cuddy began to stutter, he waved his hand and continued.

"Don't worry. I'm not here to try to guilt you into going to temple. But I am here to tell you that there's an awful lot of people outside who love you very much. Just make sure . . . very, very sure of what you want and what you're doing."

At this point, he gently squeezed her hands. His wiry beard tilted up as he tenderly smiled at her. "Lisa, just know that whatever you decide, whatever you do, the people who love you will go right on loving you. Because anyone who really and truly loves you will only want you to be happy. The people who love you know you deserve to be happy. Okay?"

Fat tears rolled down Cuddy's cheeks as House's last words echoed in her ears through the form of the rabbi's raspy voice. Too choked up to speak, she merely nodded her head. The rabbi leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

"What do you want me to tell everyone?" he said.

Her moment of decision rang through her like a clarion bell. Cuddy felt that she couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't or wouldn't allow herself to feel.

"Just get everyone in their places," she said at last. "I'll be out in a few minutes."

The rabbi bent his head to try and catch her eye which, as she spoke, she had cast downward. His smile took on a melancholy expression.

"Lisa? Look at me."

Cuddy raised her blue-green eyes to his soft brown ones.

"Are you sure? This is a big step. Is this what you want?"

Cuddy mirrored the rabbi's sad smile with one of her own as House's words from long ago sounded in her head, _"You can't always get what you want."_

"No rabbi," she whispered. "But I can't have who . . . what I really want."

The rabbi tightened his hold on her small hands ever so slightly. "You're in love with someone else, aren't you?"

Cuddy, stripped of all other emotion except her wretchedness, merely nodded.

"Lisa, if you're in love with another man then you can't . . ."

"No rabbi, please! I've . . . we've been through all that. It's out of my hands. I've lost him. . . forever. And by my own doing. It's too late."

"Lisa, if there's one thing all these years of being a rabbi has taught me is that it's never too late, not while you have breath in your body. Don't give up hope. Go to this man. Tell him . . ."

"What? That I made a mistake? That I'm sorry I couldn't love him the way that he wanted? The way that he needed? The way he deserved? Then what? Can we erase all the mistakes of the past with a simple apology? How can he ever trust me again after he already gave me his heart for safekeeping and I consciously, mercilessly broke it into a million pieces?"

She turned sideways, unable to face the rabbi anymore. He let her hands slip from his grasp.

"No," she said. "This is the only way for me now. Lucas will give my daughter and me stability. This is all I can hope for, all I deserve."

"Lisa, please reconsider, please . . ."

"Rabbi, just have everyone get in their positions. I'll be out in another minute. Please do this, for me. Please."

The rabbi nodded solemnly. Then he gently took her small face in his warm hand and turned her chin toward him so that he could kiss her cheek once more.

"I'll get everyone ready," he said. "You get yourself ready. We'll be waiting."

Without another word, he sadly turned and left the room. Cuddy locked the door behind him before turning toward the bathroom to fix her tearstained, smudged makeup for a second time.


	8. Chapter 8

**8.**

Wilson felt that he was, once again, in the position of being between the proverbial rock and a hard place. As the best friend of one, Gregory House, this experience was by no means an unfamiliar one.

While being House's friend had its advantages, (the entertainment value alone for being a witness or more often, a participant of House's clever game-playing was strong incentive to keep the relationship thriving) more often than not, Wilson found himself in this customary, uncomfortably tight position, having to make excuses for his best friend's outlandish behavior, his apparent thumbing his nose at society, its morays and traditions.

But for once, Wilson felt wholeheartedly that House was not to blame. Nearly everything Cuddy had demanded of House during their short relationship, he had given over to her. Lord knew he would never be the ideal boyfriend, but House had made an incredible effort, twisted himself like a pretzel and opened his heart wider than he'd ever done before to show how much he was invested in the relationship. All his endeavors only proved the depth of his love for Cuddy and the lengths he would go to try and make her happy and to stay together as a couple.

Yet, it had all been for naught. Cuddy's decision to break up with House came quickly and with no warning forcing Wilson to try and scramble to not only try and talk some sense into the strident Cuddy but also to help support his best friend as he nursed a broken heart.

To Wilson's way of thinking, Cuddy never adequately explained her motives for slamming the door on House. And that led Wilson to the conclusion that Cuddy did not herself have any solid reasoning behind her hasty, lethal action.

What was worse, soon after she dumped House, she added insult to injury by taking up with Lucas Douglas again. And then the final blow was struck against House and his fragile heart, to be witnessed in less than ten minutes by Wilson himself; Cuddy's shotgun marriage to Lucas.

So there he was, pulled in opposite directions by two of the most important people in his life. As a friend to Cuddy, he had taken his place on the bride's side. But as House's friend, this simple act felt like a betrayal.

Seated in his folding chair, Wilson half-hoped that House would come bursting in and make a huge scene by lampooning the hypocrisy of the whole event. But he knew that he would not.

House had put on a good show the night before, acting like he didn't care that he wasn't invited to the ceremony or even that Cuddy was getting married. But Wilson knew his friend well enough not to be taken in by his bluff and swagger. Cuddy's marriage to Lucas was killing him and by acting as a witness to the affair, Wilson felt his own fingers tighten around the handle of the dagger that Cuddy had already callously thrust into House's heart.

Wilson desperately needed for this whole thing to be over. His protective nature was calling on him to return to House's apartment and check on him. As soon as the ceremony was over, Wilson planned on doing just that even though it meant foregoing what promised to be a nicely catered event peopled by some very attractive single women.

But a cell phone call was simply not enough. Wilson instinctively knew that his fears would not be quelled until he had seen House with his own eyes. Perhaps if there was time afterward, he could return to the reception and sample a few of the culinary and feminine wares.

He glanced at his watch for probably the fifth time in three minutes. The ceremony was running late and the warmth of the late morning sun was beginning to make him uncomfortable in his dark brown suit.

He loosened his tie at his throat and wondered where the major participants had gotten themselves off to. Cuddy had not been seen by himself or any of the guests all morning and the recent disappearance of both the groom and the rabbi officiating for the ceremony had set even some of the most tolerant tongues wagging amongst the assembled guests.

Just as Wilson looked at his watch again, movement along the center aisle caught his eye. Lucas was returning to stand in front of the small, seated crowd. That at least was a good sign that the ceremony would soon be underway.

But something about Lucas' expression and the way he seemed to almost strut as he walked up to take his position was disconcerting to Wilson's nerves. The groom's demeanor reminded Wilson most forcibly of when Lucas tripped House in the cafeteria and afterwards revealed that he had been pranking the two friends as punishment for purchasing Cuddy's dream condo.

Lucas had been oh so smug when he asserted, "I proved my superiority."

It seemed to Wilson that he now had that same kind of air about him but further study and evaluation was cut short when someone began tapping firmly on his shoulder. He turned to face Julie, Cuddy's sister, who stood just behind him, an expression of supreme agitation on her lovely face.

"James? You're Greg's friend?"

"House? What has he . . .?"

"Please. Come quickly. He needs you."

Wilson hesitated not a second. He was immediately on his feet, excusing himself as he brushed past the other guests seated in his row.

When he finally got to the aisle, he said, "Where is he?"

"Out front. I've got to find my sister." And with that, Julie ran off.

Wilson hurried through the gate to the side yard and rounded the corner of the house to see a familiar, yet extremely stooped figure standing next to a motorcycle.

It had taken nearly all of House's remaining energy to drag his loudly protesting body over to the bike. He stood there for what seemed like hours, leaning heavily on the Honda Repsol and his cane, vainly attempting to psyche himself up for the horribly painful act of straddling and then riding the sport bike home.

"House?"

"Oh God. Not again," House mumbled to himself. He raised his head and opened his eyes to see Wilson striding across the lawn toward him. His exchange with Lucas had already denied him a quick exit. But now, by tarrying too long next to the bike, he was forced to face his judgmental best friend.

His attempt at a clean departure, or at least one that didn't involve him meeting anyone else he knew, was now, like everything else in his life, an utter disaster.

"House?" As he got closer to him, Wilson saw House's careful, doubled-over posture and the beginnings of a very painful bruise starting across his high right cheekbone and encircling his eye.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll be dead soon so this will all be over. Best thing for everyone all around."

"You're definitely NOT fine. What the hell happened to you?"

"I'd rather not discuss it. Right now I just wanna get home."

Lucas' swagger suddenly made sense. Some kind of altercation had occurred with House obviously bearing the brunt of it. And now, as was typical to his nature, House was trying to slough it off and pretend that nothing had occurred. He was trying to slink home where he could nurse his wounds and where he'd probably stay pickled and stoned for the majority of Cuddy's two-week honeymoon.

Wilson knew he needed to try and prevent that from happening.

"House," Wilson said as he firmly planted his feet shoulder-width apart and placed his hands on his hips. "You're obviously in no shape to ride that thing. Let me drive you home."

"Ah, but your presence is required out back of the manor house and has already been previously spoken for. Why don't you go on back there and witness the spectacle of true love conquering all?"

Wilson sadly regarded his friend. House was once again slapping away the hand of friendship and assistance, hell bent on his own annihilation. He had to reach him. He just had to.

"House, please . . . let me help you. I'm your friend."

House lifted his gaze to Wilson's warm brown eyes. "I'm fine," he asserted. "And Cuddy's your friend too. She needs you." He exhaled softly, resignedly. "Right now, she needs you more than I do."

"But House, I . . ."

"Go!" House shouted. He was glaring at Wilson with a look mixed with equal parts of anger and shame. And only because Wilson knew House so well, he saw also regret and unmitigated sorrow in his best friend's eyes.

There was nothing he could do.

Wilson removed his hands from his hips and placed them in the air, palms facing House in a definitive "stop" gesture.

"Alright House. I'm sorry if I care. But I do, I still do."

House was already throwing a leg over his motorcycle. He was unable to keep himself from inhaling sharply as his face set in a grimace in reaction to the pain.

"You're favoring your right side. Are you sure . . .?"

"I'm fine!" House asserted. But now that he was straddling the bike, he could not escape Wilson's hand as it shot out quickly and probed House's tender right side.

House hissed loudly as Wilson felt the ribs move under his fingertips.

"You've got at least two fractured ribs House! C'mon, I'm taking you home!"

"Take your hands off me," House said low and dangerously. Wilson removed his hand and nervously raked his fingers through his thick, dark hair.

"Alright, alright. Will you please just call me when you get home? Let me know you got in okay?"

House nodded curtly and placed the helmet gingerly on his head. The side cushions were putting uncomfortable pressure on his badly bruised face.

"How about I call you on your cell when I get to the end of the block?" House said. "I think my ringtone will interrupt 'Here Comes the Bride' quite nicely, don't you?"

Wilson allowed himself a small smile at his friend's envisioned scenario. "I could turn up the volume. Make sure that the theme from 'Animal House' totally blocks out the wedding music."

House reflected Wilson's smile. But it did not reach his eyes. From Wilson's point of view, House's cerulean gaze had never looked closer to tears. He simply could not fathom how his friend was carrying, and at the same time denying, the existence of so much pain, both physical and emotional.

"Sounds good," House said as he turned the key and then press-started the bike.

"Call me," Wilson repeated but House drowned him out by rolling back on the throttle of the bike. The engine roared several times before Wilson finally gave up trying to make himself heard.

In the end, he pointed his right hand and touched House's shoulder. When House turned his helmet to look at him, Wilson mimed holding his left hand like a phone up to his ear and mouthed, "Call me," again.

House nodded. And then without so much as a backward glance, he kicked the bike into gear and roared down the suburban street.

He took the quickest route, anxious to get home to his pills, his bourbon and his bed. Rather than riding more cautiously, his need to place as much physical distance between himself and Cuddy's wedding made him bolder and ride more recklessly.

Rash maneuvers on the bike were never a good idea under the best of circumstances but certainly not when his mood and his pain made his reactions sluggish.

The car to the right of him made a sudden swerve to the left as the driver leaned forward to retrieve her dropped cell phone. House received a momentary jolt to his throbbing right leg and then felt as if the earth itself had opened up underneath him, hurling his body through space.

Tires screeched and brakes squealed in protest in the second that House was airborne. House never saw the oncoming, speeding traffic, never felt the front tire of the first car crush his twisted right leg.

For as soon as he hit the ground, House experienced one brilliant, excruciating explosion of pain before the blackness, like a tidal wave, enveloped him in an inky shroud.


	9. Chapter 9

**9.**

When Cuddy re-emerged from the master bath, her makeup finally glowing and perfect, she heard no sounds beyond her own room. Not willing to believe it at first, she stepped to the door and placed her ear against it.

The music from the four-piece ensemble drifted from the backyard through the hallway, filling the empty spaces of the house. But there were no footsteps, no voices, no other human sound coming from the nearby vicinity.

Still dubious of her good fortune, Cuddy cautiously opened the door and poked her head through the crack. To her surprise, she was not immediately assailed by either rabbis or family members. She pushed the door wide and still no verbal or physical assaults intruded upon her solitude.

The rabbi had been as good as his word.

Cuddy walked down the hallway without consciously feeling her feet touch the floor. She floated along, following the music toward the rear of the house and her backyard. As soon as she opened the door and stepped onto her patio, the quartet began to play the wedding march.

She looked up and saw the rabbi seemingly standing so very far away. He smiled benevolently at her. Her gaze slid lazily to the right, all the while distorting the images within her field of vision as if she were looking through an antique pane of colored glass. Her eyes ceased their progression when her sight fixed fully upon her groom.

House had never looked more handsome. He wore a dove-grey morning suit, the lapels of the tailored jacket opened to reveal a crisp, white shirt with silver studs forming a straight line along the middle of his chest. A cummerbund of the richest blue brought out the celestial color of his eyes and no tie adorned his throat allowing his shirt to gap ever so slightly at his collarbone, flaunting his long, elegant neck and masculine Adam's apple to full advantage. His lovely, tapered-fingers gripped a silver-handled, polished black cane and he seemed to be leaning his weight only slightly upon it, signaling a low-grade pain day.

Even though it wasn't immediately apparent, she saw the whisper of a smile on his lips and the palpable energy of his joy shining through his cobalt gaze as he beheld her. Cuddy relinquished House's subtlety as a broad smile creased her face as she made her way steadily toward him.

Cuddy was happy, could in fact never remember being so very happy. The entirety of the world fell away as she continued to hold his gaze, those two flames of purest blue beckoning her onward, calling her home.

She took no notice of the flower petals strewn beneath her feet, her daughter's handiwork as flower girl. She didn't see whether her sister was in her place as matron of honor or whether the ever-reliable Wilson stood next to House as best man. She saw not one of her guests seated in the rows of folding chairs nor did she acknowledge the rabbi still standing in front of her as she glided forward.

For she saw no one else but him, selfishly wanted nothing and no one but him.

She longed to hear his warm, steady voice taking his oath to her. She eagerly desired to verbally acknowledge him, in front of all these witnesses, what her heart already knew; that she, Lisa Cuddy took him, Gregory House for her beloved husband, to have and to hold, to love, honor and cherish, to treasure, for all the rest of their days and nights together.

Cuddy stopped and stood in place only a few feet away. She reached forth her hand, wanting to touch him, to always be near him, to bind herself to him with a shining circle of gold that stood pale in comparison to the love for him that encircled her heart.

She saw him give an uncharacteristic grin and take her proffered hand. But instead of the usual current of kinetic energy that coursed through her at even so light a touch, she felt something foreign and resistant take hold of her hand.

As soon as she felt the solidity of his fingers clasping her own, the magic, silver, soap bubble in which she'd forgotten to breathe burst.

Cuddy drew a sharp breath as the world teetered on its axis. Everything within her line of sight suddenly became crisp and clear as if large, inked borders separated and defined flowers, trees, blades of grass, people, clouds and sky from one another.

Cuddy continued to hold her breath as she looked from the short, stubby hand that held hers up to the face and into her groom's watery eyes.

But they were entirely the wrong shade of blue.

Where was House? Why weren't his eyes gazing back unwaveringly into her own?

She felt the blood drain from her cheeks as she continued looking into Lucas' face, his features now marked with a quizzical expression.

No! This wasn't happening, couldn't be real.

Through a haze of panic and confusion, she heard the rabbi's methodical voice, barely audible above the beating of her terrified heart.

"And so, the covenant of marriage should never be entered into lightly. Only with the security of a deep, abiding, passionate love for each other, can two people even hope to make a life together as one. And so, although I am not usually called upon to ask this of the loved ones of any couple, today, more than ever, I ask if any of you knows just cause why these two should not now be joined in matrimony together, let them speak now or forever hold her peace."

Cuddy was staggered. The realization began to dawn on her that the rabbi's declaration and subsequent inquiry was not part of the planned ceremony.

Everything began to happen in slow motion once more as she saw Lucas' face register the rabbi's words. His features began to twist and harden as if he were holding his breath, just as she now was.

For as soon as Rabbi Beinstein had paused, a murmur rose up from the audience until a sharp voice overrode the rest, ringing in Cuddy's ears and brain as it had done for so many years.

"Lisa, for God's sake. Don't be an idiot!"


	10. Chapter 10

**10.**

Cuddy slowly turned away from Lucas' crestfallen face to see her mother, standing in the front row looking at her with a mixture of incredulity and irritation.

But before she could form any kind of reply, another voice raised vociferously above the now increased volume of the murmuring crowd. That voice came from behind the last row of invited guests.

"I would have to NOT hold my peace also."

Cuddy looked toward the sound of the second voice and saw Wilson standing in the back. His hair was disheveled and his shirt gaped at the neck. Perspiration stains were visible from underneath his jacket as if he'd been running. As she gazed at him, he took his familiar, critical posture, his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands placed squarely on his hips.

Again, as Cuddy opened her mouth to answer Wilson's vote of doubt, yet a third voice rose above the din.

"And me," the voice spoke from directly behind her. "I have no intention of holding my peace either."

Cuddy whirled around to see Julie looking directly at her, her hand raised in the air as if she were a student prepared to answer an all too easy question that had just been posed by a teacher.

Cuddy turned back to Lucas whose face was now nearly purple with fury. "Lucas, I'm sorry, I'm . . ."

The rabbi's voice cut across her. "I think we can all agree that the bride needs a few minutes alone with her mother before we can attempt to proceed."

Cuddy finally became aware of who had orchestrated this very public humiliation. She turned to face her mother once more.

"Mother, may I speak to you for a moment?" Cuddy sputtered through gritted teeth.

Arlene nodded, turned and began walking up the aisle back toward the house. As a dazed Cuddy focused on her mother's retreating form, Rabbi Beinstein sidled up next to her and took hold of her arm.

"Come Lisa," he said.

Without further ado, he escorted Cuddy swiftly toward the house following in Arlene's wake. Wilson and Julie took up their positions close behind with a few of the overly curious onlookers behind them and finally Lucas, who had at first been too stunned to move, brought up the rear.

Rabbi Beinstein walked Cuddy directly into her bedroom. Arlene already stood waiting for them so as soon as they entered, the rabbi shut the door.

"Without any preface, I think you'd better say what's on your mind Arlene," he said.

"Rabbi? I can't believe you're in on this. Did you set me up to . . ."

"Oy vey," Cuddy's mother interrupted, "Don't be such a drama queen. And if you hadn't been so stubborn and refused to speak to me for all this time, we could have done this earlier without making such a spectacle."

Cuddy planted her feet and folded her arms across her chest, readying herself for a fight.

"Spectacle? Spectacle? Mother, I work with a lot of those people. How do you ever expect me to face them again after what you've pulled here today?"

"Lisa," the rabbi stepped in, attempting to defuse the situation. "The most important issue at hand is whether or not you're making the right decision here. I'm sorry you've been embarrassed . . ."

"More like humiliated!"

"Okay, humiliated, but what's a little humiliation against a lifetime of pain and misery created by one wrong choice?"

Unable or unwilling to answer, Cuddy stood sullenly quiet. The rabbi went on.

"After I spoke with you, your mother told me she spoke to this man you're in love with. He was here today?"

Cuddy felt like a balloon that had been unexpectedly deflated. Her hands dropped to her sides.

"But how did you . . . why does this mean anything now? Yes, he came here and I talked to him. He didn't say . . . he wouldn't . . . he didn't even try to stop me." Tears started in her eyes again.

"Lisa honey, Greg saw that THIS was what you wanted," Arlene said quietly. "He said that this was your dream and he wouldn't stand in the way of it."

Cuddy felt the blood drain from her face. "He said that?"

"Yes." Arlene's voice lowered another octave as she fought to keep her emotions in check. "He loves you that much. He's willing to stand aside and let you have this if it's what you really want. Personally, I think the both of you are acting like idiots."

Cuddy rolled her eyes and sighed.

The three were quiet for a few moments. Then Rabbi Beinstein spoke again.

"Lisa, you didn't seem . . . yourself as you were walking down the aisle. Did you take something?"

Cuddy's expression became sheepish. "I . . . was still worked up from talking to House so I may have taken some valium. Just to help me relax."

"Hmm," the rabbi hummed as he looked gravely at her. "That explains it then."

"Explains what?"

"Well Lisa," the rabbi continued, "Your expression changed drastically when you looked at your fiancé. Your eyes, your whole face lit up as you walked down the aisle. Now be honest with me. It wasn't Mr. Douglas you thought you saw when you looked at him, was it?"

Cuddy, too overwhelmed and ashamed to speak, shook her head as she cast her eyes down to the floor.

The rabbi placed his warm hands on her shoulders. His simple act reminded her of the feel of House's hands when he had finished buttoning her gown and her heart shattered, falling in golden fragments to her feet.

Had it really been less than an hour ago? How many lifetimes had she lived since she'd kissed the only man she'd ever loved? How many years had she suffered through since she'd seen him, tears filling his startling blue eyes, turn and walk away from her, perhaps forever?

"Lisa," the rabbi continued, his steady voice intruding upon her thoughts. "You can't marry one man when you're this much in love with another. It's not fair. To anyone. It's not fair to Mr. Douglas, or this man you do love, or especially you. It's not a good example to set for your daughter either. Don't you want your daughter to one day marry the man she truly loves?"

Cuddy raised her silver rimmed eyes to the rabbi's kindly face.

"But I thought, in time, maybe I could learn to love Lucas. Never as much as . . . but maybe enough to . . ."

The rabbi slowly shook his head. "Oh Lisa, don't you know? If you already love . . . Greg is it?"

She nodded.

"Well if you already love Greg, your heart is full. You simply don't have room for someone else."

"But House is so . . . unpredictable and crazy and . . .," Cuddy began.

Arlene spoke up again. "I know from firsthand experience how much of a lunatic Greg House can be. But you can't hold that against him. Any man who loves you as much as he does would have to be more than a little meshuggina."

The rabbi smiled as Cuddy let out a short laugh.

"But Lisa, how can you let your fear dictate something so important as the man you're going to marry, the man you're choosing to spend the rest of your life with? You've never settled for second best, your whole life. Never. And now? You're marrying a schmuck you tolerate instead of the mensch you love. Suddenly you're willing to trade filet mignon for ground chuck, maybe Alpo? What for? Just because you can't lead Greg around by the nose like you can this man?"

Cuddy's temper flared. "I do not lead Lucas around by the nose! I . . ."

Arlene waved her hand. "Please! I've seen you with Greg and I've seen how you behave with Lucas. Greg challenges you in a way Lucas never will. He stimulates you intellectually. He engages you romantically. And he sure as hell arouses you physically."

"Mother!" Cuddy remonstrated, unable to keep the color from flooding her cheeks.

The rabbi chuckled. "I've always appreciated your honesty Arlene, even if it does tend to get a little earthy at times."

Arlene acknowledged the rabbi with a glance and then turned her full attention back to her daughter. "Don't you think I was scared when I married your father?" she said. "I'd never known anyone like him. He was funny and romantic and hot-tempered and his family didn't like me at first. But I gave up everything . . . everything that was familiar or comfortable to be with him. Because there was one thing I DID know. That I loved him more than anyone else in the world and that he felt the same way about me. Sure it was scary, to convert to a new religion, to move to a different part of the country, to give up family and friends and home and everything just to be with him."

"But Lisa . . ." and here, Arlene reached out and took Cuddy's now trembling hand. "You HAVE to give up the ground in order to fly. Greg House gave you wings. Your love together made you soar. I know, I saw you with him. Don't give that up for something ordinary, safe, common."

Tears welled up in the eyes of both mother and daughter. The rabbi too sniffed and wiped his nose.

Arlene's eyes held her daughter's watery blue-green gaze as she whispered quietly, "Please bubbala, _think_. Don't sell your life, your heart, your soul so cheaply."


	11. Chapter 11

**11.**

Except for a few sniffs and one or two soft coughs, a profound silence reigned over the occupants of the room. Cuddy, at a loss for words, felt more wrung out and emotionally naked than she could ever remember, save for that ill-fated night she went to House's apartment and tore his heart asunder.

But her thoughts and the stillness of the bedroom were suddenly broken by raised voices in the hall outside. When Cuddy heard Lucas' desperate plea, "Let me see her!" she moved with a quick step toward the door, the rabbi and her mother following in her wake.

Cuddy had only just gripped the door's handle when Julie's voice, nearly unrecognizable in pitch and volume stopped her.

"You stay away from my sister! Don't you ever come near her again!"

Cuddy's jaw felt like it had crashed to the floor. Too shocked to react further, she could only look to her mother whose face reflected a similar level of surprise at her sister's declaration.

Other voices joined in as the sounds and words tangled together in confusion.

And then Wilson, ordinarily calm, soothing Wilson, could be heard yelling just as loudly as Julie, "Stay away from Cuddy and her daughter you son of a bitch!"

"I have EVERY right to see my wife, my bride!"

Julie's voice raised once more above the general noise level. "You gave up any rights you ever had when you attacked a cripple from behind you sick sadist!"

Arlene and Rabbi Beinstein barely moved out of the way in time as Cuddy suddenly flung wide the door.

"What? What happened?" she fairly screamed.

"Lisa, I . . ." Lucas began, but Julie over-road him.

"Lisa, I had to tell you before . . . I saw what happened. House was in the front yard. He was walking away, he was leaving without any trouble and Lucas knocked him down and beat him up. . . really badly. Then he kicked House while he was lying on the ground. It happened so fast . . ."

Julie reached out for her sister's hand. Paralyzed with revulsion and shock herself, Cuddy numbly extended her fingers toward her younger sister.

"I just stood there and let it happen," Julie said, her voice shaking with emotion. "I should have done something. I'm so sorry."

Still clasping Cuddy's hand, she turned to face Lucas. "I didn't do anything then, but I'm doing the right thing now. No way am I going to let you marry or get anywhere near my sister and her daughter ever again. Anyone cowardly enough to beat up a cripple and kick him while he's still down is cowardly enough to hurt a woman or a child. And I'm not giving you that chance."

Wilson stepped closer to Julie, taking his place to protectively stand in front of Cuddy too. "None of us are," he said.

A panicked expression gripped Lucas' doughy features. He looked at Cuddy who was reluctant to return his gaze.

"Lisa, don't you understand? He was never going to leave you, leave us alone. He's done nothing but hurt you. That's all he'll ever do because that's all he'll ever know. He spreads misery wherever he goes because he is miserable and will always be miserable. He came here to ruin our wedding, your special day. I couldn't let him get away with that."

No one spoke. No one breathed. Finally, Cuddy's voice rang out, sounding foreign and hollow to even her own ears as she spoke into the now eerily quiet hallway.

"But he was already leaving. He didn't try and stop me. He said he only wanted me to be happy. He didn't make a scene. He didn't hurt me." She paused and then said more quietly, "House never hurt me. It was I . . . I hurt him."

She paused a second time, as if catching her breath and gathering her strength. The spell of silence continued to hold sway over everyone standing within range of the sound of her voice.

When Cuddy spoke again, her voice had grown husky with emotion.

"House didn't ruin anything. You did."

"I didn't . . .!" Lucas protested. And then his eyes turned dark, nearly black with his rage and jealousy.

"I get it! I understand!" he screamed, spit flying from his mouth in his impotent wrath. "This was always about House! You're still in love with him! Don't deny it! You still love him, don't you? Don't you?" His last words came out in a strangled shriek.

Cuddy stared at her fiancé as if he were a stranger. How could she ever have dreamed of loving him as much as House? Her thoughts and feelings of this day and for the many weeks she'd separated herself from House seemed hazy. All of her actions involving the man standing in front of her were as a mystery to her now.

All emotion seemed gone from her body. Only the smallest of candles was still lit in the deepest recesses of her heart. Though only a candle, it illuminated and clarified her true feelings. She knew then that the flame within her would only ever burn for another.

Lucas' last question still resounded in the house and echoed within her own mind.

"_You still love him, don't you? Don't you? _

"I do."

Silently she removed the engagement ring from her hand. As she reached out to hand it to him, Wilson intercepted her, taking the ring from her fingers and handing it to Lucas as if he didn't want Cuddy to even touch the man.

Cuddy felt that she would never forget the shocked expression on Lucas' face, the utter wretchedness with which his shoulders slumped as he took hold of the ring, pocketed it and turned away without another word.

As the front door closed behind him, the room began to spin and Cuddy felt several pairs of hands supporting her now reeling weight. She knew rather than saw Wilson pick her up, carry her back into the bedroom and lay her down on the bed. The stress of her day and the valium she'd taken earlier had finally caught up with her.

Julie brought a damp cloth from the bathroom and lovingly placed it across her sister's forehead. She then went to get ice from either the kitchen or the catering staff.

Arlene sat on the edge of the bed holding her daughter's hand. She had never felt at ease displaying affection toward her eldest. It had always been easier just to push Lisa and wait for her to either move forward or push back.

But pushing her daughter any further right now was simply not an option. Lisa was trembling at the brink and her mother instinctively knew that just the slightest breath might shove her over. Arlene's mind replayed her last conversation with House and the look in his eyes as his heart broke in pieces at her feet.

How two people had made themselves so miserable when the potential for such happiness existed, Arlene simply couldn't comprehend.

After awhile, Cuddy's eyes fluttered open. "Where is everyone? My guests . . . ?"

"Shhhh," Arlene spoke to calm her daughter. "Don't worry. Rabbi Beinstein is ushering everyone home."

"And Rachel? Where's my daughter?"

"Julie took her back to her room," Wilson said. "Everything is being taken care of. You should get some rest. Your respiration and heart rate were a little above normal."

Cuddy frowned at Wilson. "So did you call and tell him how big I screwed up this time? How much of an idiot I was? That I acted like a complete . . ."

Wilson worriedly looked at his watch. "I haven't talked to him since he left here on his motorcycle. He was going to call me when he got in to let me know he got home okay. He should've called by now."

Cuddy's eyebrows raised nearly into her hairline. "He was riding his motorcycle?"

Wilson was saved the bother of answering her question as his cell phone started playing the theme from "Animal House."

"Oh good. This is him now." Wilson placed his phone up to his ear. "House? I'm glad you called, listen I . . . Who? Emergency number?"

Cuddy sat up quickly. Arlene's hand on her shoulder kept her from jumping off the bed entirely.

"What happened? Yes. Yes. I understand. I'll be there in a few minutes." And then Wilson disconnected the call.

"Wilson?" Cuddy's eyes gazed beseechingly at him. For a moment, Wilson thought of walking out without explaining the phone call, of punishing Cuddy for her unfair treatment of his best friend and for breaking the heart House had freely given her.

But her anguished expression immediately changed his mind.

"House has been in an accident. I have to get to the hospital right away."

Cuddy pushed her mother's hand from her shoulder. "I'm going with you," she said determinedly.

One look at her face convinced Wilson that any arguments against that course of action would be futile. Any reasons he could possibly give her for not going to the hospital would fall on deaf ears.

His medical persona took over, anxious to give her the hard, cold facts. However, his motives were hardly pure. Wilson remained more intent upon sharing at least some of the blame he was feeling for letting his best friend attempt to drive home in his weakened state.

"We have to go right now. He's being prepped for emergency surgery. He's bleeding internally."

"Lisa, you're in no condition right now to . . ." Arlene said.

With a look, Cuddy silenced her mother. "I'm going mom. Now get out of my way."

She slid off the bed and took a few tremulous steps before gaining more confidence and becoming steadier in her stride.

"Oh God," Cuddy said. "I can't go dressed like this."

Wilson was already at the door. "I'm going right now. There's no time to lose."

Cuddy looked at her mother and in those silent seconds, volumes were communicated.

"Go," Arlene said. "Julie and I will look after Rachel and I'll bring a change of clothes to you later." She stood up. "Go. He needs you."

Cuddy crossed to her mother, kissed her cheek and then walked through the door that Wilson was holding open for her.


	12. Chapter 12

**12.**

The ride to the hospital passed in silence. With all the thoughts spinning through her brain, Cuddy could think of nothing to say.

Her own culpability in the events leading up to House's current fight for life arrested her voice just as assuredly as it did her heart.

And she was so angry at Wilson for letting House attempt to ride his motorcycle after being beaten by Lucas that she refrained from opening her mouth for fear of the venom that would come spewing out.

Guilt over the same line of thinking guaranteed Wilson's silence as well.

They arrived at the ER in record time and immediately sought out the head of the department so they could be updated on House's present condition.

Tests confirmed that House was bleeding internally. His fractured ribs had punctured his right lung and his right leg had been crushed to such an extent that the surgeon's recommendation was for immediate amputation.

Just as Cuddy and Wilson were vainly attempting to wrap their heads around this news, a scream, long and shattering, echoed down the hallway, clutching at their insides as it split their eardrums.

They turned to look at each other as they simultaneously recognized the voice that had initiated that scream. The hair on the back of their necks raised in sympathetic reaction to both the primitive nature and hopelessness inherent within that anguished cry. As one, the two friends ran down the hall in the direction of the sound.

House had been drifting in and out of consciousness. He tacitly knew that he hadn't made it home and that his body was now experiencing a level of pain that he'd never felt before.

The sheer rawness of his pain was the singular feature that let him know he was still tethered, however thinly, to this life.

Through the curtains of physical torture, House's medical mind began assessing the damages to his body. He guessed his broken ribs, courtesy of Lucas, had produced a pneumothorax when he collided with the pavement. He evaluated the level of injury to his limbs by moving first one arm and then the other. Though tender, they seemed relatively free from harm.

House lifted his left leg and wiggled his toes. The left was battered and bruised but all right. But when he tried to raise his right leg, he blacked out once more from sensory overload.

When he regained consciousness, he realized that what he was feeling now was not just the regular, day-to-day pain he'd grown accustomed to from his right leg. This pain was wholly different.

It had a sharper edge to it, a grinding, fierce sort of festering ache that left him feeling feverish and panting for air with every breath or minute movement of his body.

Further inquiry was cut short by an efficient medical staff that conveyed him down a long hallway to the operating theatre. House lay on the gurney, watching helplessly as the fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling passed before his eyes like box cars on a speeding freight train. Each jolt of the gurney compounded his physical agony.

Once he had been wheeled into the surgical waiting area, he was left completely alone again as the doctors went to scrub in and the nurses made their necessary preparations.

House felt his isolation weigh heavy upon his chest. He felt it join the suffering of his physical self to further add to the cruelty of his ceaseless torment.

He wished he'd let Wilson drive him home. He wished he'd never gotten up that morning. He wished he'd never met or fell in love with Lisa Cuddy.

House fought valiantly against the hot tears that rose unbidden to his eyes at this last thought. The pain in his leg and his body could not hold a candle to the intense ache burning within his chest.

His heartbreak was so intimate, so devastating that it had taken on a life all its own. He was ravaged by it at the same moment he was defined through it. It was as if his hurt and loneliness were something tangible like a fist eternally clenching his still beating heart, choking the life from his body just as surely as it strangled the love from his heart.

He just could not comprehend how his heart could go on beating after it had been shattered into a million pieces. How did he continue to live when his wretched grief robbed the very breath from his lungs and stole the will to live from his mind and body?

The tears were flowing steadily from the corners of his eyes now. He thought about Cuddy, how he had turned to look at her one last time before he walked away forever. He remembered how she was a vision of loveliness all in white. And he innately knew that her image, along with the feeling of pressing his lips to hers, her body close to his own, would go with him, would perhaps be the last thing he saw and felt when he finally succumbed to the death that had already taken hold of his heart.

How many times would he have to die? When could he finally find release from all his pain?

The doctor's masked face swam into view. The voice behind the mask said, "Are you in pain?"

House's reply was simple and honest. "Always."

"We're almost ready for you. We'll be giving you anesthesia during the surgery so we'll forego the pain meds right now. Okay?"

House just blinked. But his mind responded, "_Sadist_."

"I've got to be honest with you," the doctor continued. "The damage to your right leg is quite extensive. Do you remember what happened?"

"I was kinda busy being unconscious." House looked up into the masked face. He frowned. "How bad?"

"Your right femur and the surrounding tissue sustained an acute crush injury. That, along with the existing damage to your thigh indicates the best course of action . . ."

"You're not taking my leg."

"Doctor House, there's too much damage. Even if we could save the leg, it's doubtful you'd be able to walk again. And even if you could, your ability to walk would be severely impaired. There's no reason . . ."

"You're not taking my leg," House said more loudly.

With a simple gesture, the doctor summoned several nurses who immediately appeared near the gurney and began to engage themselves in what House considered assorted, nefarious activities.

"You need to trust me doctor House. We'll do what's best . . ."

"For you!" House finished for him. At his outburst, one of the nurses grabbed his arm and started to place holding restraints around his wrist.

"No! Don't touch me!" House was frantic. "I don't want you butchers laying a finger on me!"

"Calm down doctor House. You're not doing yourself any good upsetting yourself this way."

"You're not taking my leg! Leave me alone!"

The surgeon nodded to one of the nurses who immediately retrieved a syringe from a nearby table.

House screamed. It was a scream of fury, of hopelessness, of helplessness and pain.

The nurse succeeded in puncturing his arm as House screamed again.

"No!"

He struggled vainly as his vision thickened and his arms and body started to feel exceedingly heavy.

As his eyes began to blink slower and slower, House saw the door to the outside hallway swing wide. Like the sun dawning over the edge of the horizon, something bright and shining floated toward him. He knew who it was even before the ethereal silhouette took physical shape.

When he saw her standing there, dressed in the same white gown as he'd seen her in an hour or more ago, that was when he knew, knew for certain. House realized he was dying.

And she had come to him now only so that he could say goodbye.

"House?"

Her voice sounded so steady, so sure, so filled with concern.

She was life. Her voice, filled with the warmth of the sun, called to him, called him back.

But a stronger voice beckoned to him as well. Darker, quieter, an unrelenting call that House knew came from inside himself, was himself.

He was death.

Still, he fought on.

"Please," he croaked wearily, "Please don't let them take my leg. Please . . . it's all I have left."

Cuddy swooped low edging closer to him as if she were listening to his words, as if she were really there and not just in his imagination.

"I won't let them amputate your leg House. I promise you." Her voice washed over him like a warm spring rain.

House let loose one short, bitter laugh.

"Why should I believe you? All you've ever done is lie to me."

Cuddy leaned back, the hurt registering on her face.

"No," she breathed.

"You never loved me. You lied every time you said you did." House's pain echoed in every word, was etched in every line in his face.

But then his features took on an entirely separate appearance. He looked placidly up, his cobalt gaze meeting her tear-filled eyes. His mood shifted dramatically. He no longer wanted to accuse or retaliate for his misery.

He no longer wished to fight, not with her, not with death.

House's face took on the look of acceptance.

He beseeched her with his eyes as he said, "Have mercy."

"What?" Cuddy forgot her tears as her shock registered in every cell of her body. She bent low once more to hear his whispered words.

"Mercy. Have mercy, I beg you. Let me . . . die."

"House, no!"

House felt his battle with unconsciousness begin to wane. The darker abyss yawned before him.

"Everything is pain, my life is pain. Only you. I loved you. You gave me solace. Now that's gone. Please have mercy. Let me die. Please."

Cuddy exhaled a sob as the tears ran streaming down her face. Just as House slowly closed his eyes, one of Cuddy's tears slid down her cheek and dropped from her chin. As she leaned forward to kiss his forehead, this single tear dripped down and landed on House's nose.

House opened his eyes again in wonder when he felt the tiny splash.

"You're really here? Is it really you?" he said, beginning to slur his words.

Cuddy smiled. "I'm here House. I'm here. I'll take care of you. I promise."

House couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me alone again in the dark. Cuddy . . ."

A slight smile tilted the corners of his mouth as he realized that her name would be the last word to ever pass his lips on this earth.


	13. Chapter 13

**13.**

Alarms sounded, bells and buzzers went off as House let go his grip on life.

Cuddy staggered backward as the team of doctors and nurses surged forward, wasting no time engaging in their desperate battle to save House's life.

Cuddy's backward progress continued toward the door until she bumped into something solid and warm. She spun in place to find Wilson standing there, looking at her with a tear-filled gaze.

"Wilson?"

"Clear!" one of the doctors shouted. Cuddy turned just in time to see House's body jerk violently as the defibrillator paddles were applied to his chest.

"No," she sobbed.

Wilson's arms wrapped round her, supporting her, holding her up physically as well as emotionally.

Cuddy and Wilson watched from a distance as the team continued CPR on House, intubating him, injecting him and shocking his heart again.

"No," Cuddy repeated softly as she listened to Wilson sobbing quietly against her ear, his chest pressing into her back with every intake of breath.

Through a haze of tears and regrets, Cuddy watched as House lay dying. Her mind numbly filed through the patients she'd lost over her years as a physician, her protective cloak of medical objectivity clasped so close and precious to her heart.

But this experience was altogether different. For here, now, it was _her_ heart that was dying. House would take everything with him, all her hopes, her dreams, all her passions, all of her love. His death would extinguish the whole, his last breath blowing out her most profound soul's desires as easily as a candle's flame.

Cuddy continued looking on helplessly as House, for the very first time since she'd known him, gave up without a fight.

Or was he? House had always been a fighter and he also nearly always won his battles, whether verbally or physically due to his reliance on his intelligence and his willingness to use outright treachery to outwit his opponent.

Was House giving up or was he actively fighting? Fighting against life and the heartbreak of their failed relationship and the pain that would never loosen its hold upon him? Was House being the supreme stubborn ass one more time to have the ultimate last word? Would he leave her there alone with nothing but her memories, her guilt and remorse for the mistakes she made, for driving him away, leave her with her sorrow for what might have been if either one of them had been willing to surrender to the love they both felt for each other?

House's body leaped from the table once more. Cuddy could see it, could see it all. She saw it in the eyes of the team whose quick movements began to be less hurried, who were willing to concede defeat against this obstinate man. They were going to prove House right. They were going to let him die.

From somewhere deep inside, Cuddy girded herself with the armor of her pain and her fear of losing the one man she knew she loved just as she'd found him again. She squared her narrow shoulders and pushed Wilson's arms away from her as she strode forward into the fray.

Picking up the paddles, she began issuing orders, increasing dosages and voltage. Cuddy would brook no opposition, immediately taking the reins of hierarchy over the entire team.

Wilson remained where he was, his eyes wide with awe and admiration as he watched his one friend fight desperately to save the life of the other.

When Cuddy wasn't yelling directions, a constant stream of angry words and curses began to emanate from her mouth directed at the unconscious, prone form of House.

"C'mon you stubborn bastard! C'mon! Clear!"

House's body jerked again but the monitors refused to show a response.

"Dr. Cuddy, I think . . ." one of House's attendants began.

"Don't think! Just do as I tell you!" Cuddy screeched at him before turning her full attention back to House.

"You stubborn, arrogant ass! You're not getting out of this that easily. This is one argument I'm NOT letting you win you son-of-a-bitch bastard! Clear!"

Once more, House's body rose away from the table.

And then the heart monitor came alive again.

Cuddy laughed, the tears shining in her eyes as a general sigh of victory and relief passed through the occupants of the room.

"Let's make sure he's stable and then get him into surgery as soon as possible," the first doctor said.

"You're not doing an amputation," Cuddy rejoined as her eyes looked up from House into the other doctor's.

"He'd never survive a longer surgery! He's too frail as it is! He's . . ."

"What good is it to save his life now only to have him die in a few days? If you remove his leg, you'll kill him just as surely if you stabbed him in the heart." Her eyes flicked down to House and back to the surgeon. "I won't let you do it. I didn't just win this battle to let you lose the war. I won't let you kill him. I won't let him kill himself. He's not going to die. Not on my watch."

"Dr. Cuddy. This course of treatment is ill advised."

Cuddy and House's surgeon stood glaring at each other from either side of the table where House was lying. After several tense moments, the surgeon sighed. The only person in the room more stubborn than his patient was the fiery Dean of Medicine with whom he was engaged in a standoff. Eventually, he nodded his head once in compliance.

"The best orthopedic surgeon we've got is Henreid. But I don't think . . ."

"Get him here. Now."

"I'm on it," Wilson said as he took his cell phone out of his pocket before turning and leaving the room.

When Dr. Henreid arrived, he quickly reviewed the scans, concurring with the other doctors that amputation was the safest course of action to save the patient's life.

House himself seemed to support the decision as he coded again. Even though he was brought back faster this time, this second event lent even more credence to the idea that he would never survive the hours-long surgery it would take to try and rebuild his mangled leg.

But Cuddy was adamant, had never, in fact, been more unyielding.

Except, as Wilson sadly reflected, when she refused to give House another chance at their relationship.

Like his colleague before him, Dr. Henreid also came to see the futility of arguing with the immovable Dean of Medicine. So he set to work.

Screws and pins to hold together bone, staples and stitches to suture sinew and flesh, so very much blood spent on House's part, so very much sweat on the part of the surgeons epitomized the long hours the team spent saving House's leg and life.

House coded again twice more during the surgery as if to let it be known that he would have the last word. But Cuddy would not let the team, nor even House himself give up.

When House was finally wheeled out of the operating room, a full, solid cast spanned the length of his entire right leg from hip to ankle.

Dr. Henreid advised both Cuddy and Wilson that in his opinion, House's leg had been the worst injury of its kind he'd ever attempted to set. House's leg, horribly shattered and held together, as Dr. Henreid said with "glue, chewing gum and bailing wire," was so fragile that any further injury, no matter how slight, would force the delicately constructed house of cards to come crashing down. In that instance, there would be no other option except amputation.

All in all, Dr. Henreid remained dubious regarding a full recovery on the part of the patient.

House was wheeled into the ICU, under heavy sedation with Cuddy still at his side. She walked next to his gurney, holding his hand.

Now that he was finally out of surgery, Cuddy relinquished her overwrought control on the OR and collapsed in upon herself once more, numbly stroking House's hand as she stationed herself in a chair positioned as close as possible to his bed in the ICU.

Wilson offered to give her a break but she adamantly refused, continuing to gaze blankly at House's sleeping form, unconsciously stroking his hand back and forth, back and forth. Her lips moved continuously as she silently cursed, chided, rebuked, comforted and promised to forever love and cherish the man who lay before her.

Arlene Cuddy finally arrived and made her way to the ICU. Once there, she sat quietly with her daughter as she continued her vigil at House's bedside. Arlene saw the sheer exhaustion in her daughter's body, mind and heart but knew that she would have to wait for the opportunity to convince Lisa to rest.

Cuddy never let go of his hand, stroking down from his wrist to the familiar, long fingers and speaking to him in a voice that only he could hear.

She needed him to wake up. She needed to look into his eyes. She needed to reassure him that she had kept her promise, that she had saved his leg. That she still treasured his life. That she still needed his love.

Cuddy didn't realize that her eyes had closed until she felt her mother's hand on her arm.

"Lisa. You're not doing anyone any good by exhausting yourself like this. Go. Get changed out of those scrubs and get some rest. I'll stay here with Greg."

After so many hours, Cuddy was too tired to argue. "Call me if he wakes up?"

Arlene nodded. As Lisa stood, Arlene kissed her daughter on the cheek.

Cuddy's eyes filled with tears. "Thanks mom," she said. "Thank you for everything."

Arlene smiled. "We'll talk later about how I'm always right. You get some rest now."

Cuddy nodded and dragged herself out of the room.

Arlene turned and took the chair that her daughter had vacated, closest to House.

She watched as his chest rose and fell, the machines continuing to do their work in forcing the air and life into his battered body.

"You're a lotta trouble. You know that? VERY high maintenance," she said to him at last.

"I know what my daughter sees in you and you ARE cute. But cute only gets you so far. Because you're still the biggest pain in the tuches I've ever seen."

House quietly moaned as if in response. Arlene leaned in closer and saw his eyelids flutter.

"Nurse! Nurse!" she called into the hallway. "Come in here! And get my daughter back in here now!"


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Please be advised, the following chapter contains a description of child abuse.

**14.**

Shadows and mist flitted across the transom of House's mind, obscuring his vision and clouding his thoughts.

He hurt so badly. And he was so incredibly tired. All he wanted to do was rest. Why wouldn't they let him sleep?

House shuffled forward toward the darkness, much more familiar to him than the light. Too, it held for him the promise of pain-free slumbers. Just as he was about to become enveloped by the gloom, something or someone jerked him back.

Pain and memory, illusion and truth wrapped round each other, tangling together in a huge knotted cord of experience and dreams. His senses were garbled, like a movie projector running the film backward. His chest was hurting and he had the impression that someone was swearing at him.

But that was no surprise. He'd obviously screwed up . . . again.

"Actions have consequences," his father's voice cut through the din, echoing through his head. "When are you ever going to learn that Greg?"

He could see it. He could see it all.

His father was striding toward him, swinging a two-by-four in his large, calloused hands. Greg looked up into his father's glowering face, into the eyes that were black with rage. But it was a controlled rage that was all too familiar to the boy. His father prided himself on venting his anger upon his son yet never giving away his executions through any tell-tale signs on his Greg's young body.

It was at these times, more than any other, that Greg felt more keenly the isolation of his entire existence, his very surroundings mirroring his loneliness and fear. For as soon as the door leading down to the cellar was closed behind them, Greg was cut off from everything else, not only his mother or any other witnesses to his torture, but also to light, to hope.

Everything drew out slowly, Greg's experience was sharpened like the edge of a knife. For many years afterward, House could still remember exactly the color of the clothes he and his father were wearing, what time of day it had been, the expression on his mother's face as he was led down to the cellar, the look in his father's eyes as he began to lay into him, infinitesimal details surrounding each of these events, distinguishing one from another, standing stark and crystalline forever in his mind's eye.

There came to his ears a familiar humming sound, like an electrical current through high-tension wires. The wood sailed through the air, rotating almost leisurely as it arced toward him. The droning ended abruptly in a loud 'pop' as it made contact with the naked flesh on his back. With an effort, Greg held in the yell and subsequent groan as the accustomed pain shot through him, his flesh stinging at first and then beginning to ache as the capillaries opened and the bruises began to form.

His father always said the beatings were for his own good. But it was hard to think of anything in the world that was good when the welts started to raise all over his arms, legs and body.

After four strikes, Greg fell to his knees. The fifth one knocked him face down into the dirt of the cellar floor. His nose filled with the dank smell of dirt and mold as he tasted the warm metallic flavor of his own blood in his mouth.

He lay there helpless with nothing to do but wait for his father's wrath to eventually wane.

While patience had never been Greg's fortitude, he was a bright enough child to recognize when a situation was completely out of his hands. Full control lay instead in the hands of his outraged father who might go on beating him in the darkness of the cellar until Greg gasped his last shaking breath in this life.

He lay very still, quiet and still, so that his father would stop hitting him with his piece of wood. Greg was playing his own version of possum.

Just as it seemed he was tiring and he was about to let up, his father savagely kicked him, rolling Greg's body over in the dirt. The as yet unblemished front of Greg's body seemed to enrage his father even more, compelling him to take up the two-by-four with renewed vigor, laying it again and again across Greg's chest and ribs.

House's eyes had grown accustomed to the relative dark of the cellar with its single, overhead, unshaded light bulb. Yet his father seemed to be getting harder and harder to see, his outline becoming hazy as if Greg were looking down a long tunnel.

Surely his father hated him. And yet, sometimes his father would take him for a ride in the Jeep or to get ice cream. On those special occasions, he would tousle Greg's thick, almost auburn hair as he'd laugh at something his son said or did.

If only it was one way or the other, not both. The inconsistency of love and hate confused Greg making him tread more cautiously for he was never sure what would set his father off. One day something he did would make his father laugh right out loud and the next, he would be backhanded across the room.

All the while, his mother did nothing. She said she loved him, at times acted like she loved him but in Greg's young mind, when it really mattered, when he needed her most, she would go into another room, putting as much space between herself and the muffled sounds of leather or wood or metal hitting her son's body.

His mother would never interfere on his behalf, abandoning him to his miserable fate as if she never cared for him at all. "You're a lotta trouble. You know that?" she'd said or words to that effect on any number of occasions.

He was a burden, a tiresome, disconcerting element in the House household, forever asking questions, forever doing what he shouldn't, testing, probing, looking for answers, seeking the truth of what was beyond the restrictive family circle of three. Greg was smart and funny and active and clever and curious.

He was six.

Greg was already well versed in the familiarity and despondency of his enfeebled position. Why couldn't they love him, why couldn't anyone love him? What had he done that was so bad?

Perhaps it was nothing he'd said or did. Perhaps it was him, only him after all was said and done. He was bad. He was wrong. He was something less, something that deserved to be kicked and slapped and hit with belts and unyielding pieces of wood. He was a mistake, an accident. Even then he already knew it, felt the truth of it tugging at his chest and forming ice in the marrow of his bones.

That was it. That had to be it. Because even at such a young age, Gregory House had decided that there had to be a reason, a rational explanation for everything. There just had to be.

And him being wrong or somehow an error was just as good a reason as any; the reason he suffered. The reason he didn't, would never deserve love.

The cellar, alive with his father's satisfied grunting as he delivered each blow and the sounds of his mother's hesitant footsteps in the dining room overhead began to drift away, swallowed in the darkness of memory.

House began to come back to himself although the tears from a time long past plagued him in the present. And wherever he was did not seem, at first, to be much of an improvement.

His eyelids fluttered and opened to diffuse lighting and hazy shapes that refused to take form as he strained to focus his vision. He could hear voices and sounds but could make no sense of them.

Crashing pain and fear took hold of his heart and he began to writhe in agony, trying to escape. He closed his eyes again and groaned.

God he needed her, needed to see her even if it was only his drug and pain addled brain creating an illusion in his desperate need for love and reassurance.

He would call to her, lift her name up like a prayer. Even though he was an atheist, she remained the closest thing to heaven a hell bound man like him had ever known.

"Cuddy?" he tried to say but the name remained unsaid. There was something lodged in his throat. He was unable to call to her.

But he had seen her, before he closed his eyes, she had been there. And perhaps she was there still. Hoping against hope, he opened his eyes once more.

He felt a hand on his arm just as a face finally took shape.

But it was not the face he wanted, not the one he'd last seen before he closed his eyes. He only wanted her. Only she could calm him, tell him he would be all right. He would take no one else's word on that save hers.

Arlene looked into House's pain-filled, confused eyes and knew what he needed.

"Hold on Greg. Lisa's coming. She's coming back."

She began stroking his arm to help quiet him as he began to flail about.

"Ssshh," she said in an uncharacteristic attempt to soothe him. "She only just left this moment. She stayed by your side for hours. She never left you."

A nurse quickly entered the room and without delay stepped past Arlene and injected something into House's IV line before the older woman could protest. Almost immediately, House's eyes began to roll up into his head.

"What did you just give him?" Arlene asked her voice tinged with anger.

"Sedative."

"You couldn't have waited a few minutes? You couldn't have waited for my daughter? So he could see her? So she could talk to him? Tell him . . . "

"He was too agitated," the nurse replied, starting to fasten House's arms to the bed with restraints. "Dr. Henreid left strict orders that this patient lie quiet and still."

"MY daughter is this Henreid's boss and by pecking order, yours too. You should have waited!"

As Arlene continued to fume, the nurse, having performed her duties and having finished strapping House securely to the bed, left the room. She passed Cuddy in the doorway who walked in just as House gave one last sigh and closed his eyes again, succumbing to the full effect of the sedative.

Cuddy arrived a moment too late.


	15. Chapter 15

**15.**

Arlene turned to her daughter. She knew that anything she said at this point would ring hollow and insignificant. Once again, Lisa and Greg's timing had been all wrong.

"They gave him a sedative. He just fell back to sleep," Arlene said in a subdued voice.

Cuddy stood staring blankly at her mother for a millisecond before comprehension and despondency swept across her delicate features. She could hold in her tiredness, her fear, her sorrow no longer. She burst into tears.

Arlene crossed to her daughter and took her in her arms. She rigidly patted Lisa's back as her daughter continued to cry, spending her emotions out in a long trail of tears and incoherent sobbing.

"Help me out here Lisa. Your mother's an alter cocker with a bad hip. C'mon and let me get you to a chair."

Cuddy shuffled blindly next to her mother, allowing herself to be led to the chair closest to House. Upon reaching it, she slid down gracelessly, weeping with such increased energy that Arlene began to wonder whether she might physically injure herself.

Arlene went out into the hall and asked a nurse to have James Wilson paged to House's room. Wilson was a doctor and could give Lisa something that might take the edge off and calm her down.

When she walked back into the room, Lisa was nearly hysterical. She was sprawled across both the chair and the bed, clutching House's long, thin arm and weeping uncontrollably into his shoulder. Arlene knew that she needed to shake her daughter out of her agitated state.

"Lisa! Control yourself! Do you want to make a shanda fur die goy? Do you want your staff to see you behaving like this?"

"I don't care!" Cuddy wailed, "I can't lose him now, I just can't. And he's slipping away! I know it. I can feel it."

"Cuddy?" Wilson's familiar voice floated over from the doorway. Although he was walking into the room, his increased respiration and a few beads of sweat on his forehead revealed the fact that he'd probably run as fast as possible in answer to the page.

"What's happening? What're you doing?" he said.

"Wilson," Cuddy said with a quavering voice, "Please. I've got to do something. I can't let him . . . he can't die without knowing how much I love him."

"House isn't going to die," Wilson said more confidently than he actually felt. "You made sure of that. You've done everything possible for him. He's in good hands Cuddy, yours."

Cuddy looked up to meet Wilson's fixed gaze. His large, luminous brown eyes fortified her, drying her tears as easily as turning off a flow of water from a faucet.

Unspoken affection passed between them. They would see this through together, united in their mutual love and friendship for House.

"I'm going to go down to the pharmacy and get you something," Wilson said gently. "Will you be alright here with your mother while I'm gone?"

"Take your time James," Arlene said. She was impressed with the way in which Wilson's mere presence and a few, well-chosen words on his part had immediately calmed her daughter. "Lisa just needed to get a handle on her disappointment of missing Greg when he woke up."

She turned to give her daughter a bracing look. "Lisa realizes now it won't be too long before he wakes up again and she'll be able to talk to him."

Wilson nodded. "Fine. Then I'll leave you two alone for awhile.

As Cuddy turned her full attention back to House, Arlene mouthed a silent and uncharacteristic "Thank you" to Wilson. Wilson nodded a second time as he moved past Arlene and approached House's bedside. He laid a hand gently on House's shoulder and murmured something that only House and the ever-vigilant Cuddy could hear. Then he silently turned and left the room.

Arlene took note of the tears that stood in Wilson's eyes as he walked past her. House was indeed an extraordinary individual. He engendered incredible emotion from the people in his life. Arlene realized that while Greg House might at times be a hard man to like, apparently to those who knew him well, he was an easy man to love.

She sat down in the chair opposite her daughter to wait for what would likely be hours. As she settled in, Arlene considered how fortunate her eldest daughter was in her current alliances. James Wilson was a steady, good-hearted friend. And Gregory House was . . . well, House was a force of nature. And he was so obviously, hopelessly in love with Lisa that his passion had swept all of them up within the flood of his sentiment.

Not one of them had been left unscathed. Not one of them was unaware of the power and magnitude of his love. It was at the same time beautiful and heartbreaking to witness. The beauty lay within the possibilities for happiness that Lisa and Greg could achieve together. The heartbreak was in their own fears that could and so far had, subverted that happiness and their future lives together.

Arlene made a decision. She needed to talk to Lisa, not only for her daughter's sake but for Greg's as well.

Cuddy meanwhile had found her emotional footing again. She continued to gaze at House and stroke his bicep. She had gained a second wind, she had composed herself. Arlene knew that the time to set her daughter straight, to shake some sense into her had come.

It wouldn't be pretty. In fact, it promised to be quite the opposite. But it was necessary. For all of them.

"Lisa," Arlene began. "What are you going to say to Greg when he wakes up?"

Cuddy raised an eyebrow as she looked over at her mother. "What do you mean? Of course I'm going to tell him I love him."

Arlene inhaled deeply. "And how much do you love him?"

"What do you mean Mom?" Cuddy said, her voice already beginning to color with defensive anger.

Arlene inclined forward in her chair. Now that she'd broached the subject, she was determined to see it through to the bitter end.

"Greg's going to be laid up for quite awhile. It's going to be a very long time before he's walking again, if ever. Are you really prepared for everything that comes with that? Are you really ready to be committed to a man who may never walk again?"

Cuddy too, seemed to brace herself. She'd known her mother long enough to know that Arlene was not merely casting about indecisively. There was something definitive on her mind.

"What are you saying mother? That I'm going to run out on House when he needs me the most?"

Arlene rolled her head down, looking at her daughter from beneath her brows. "You've already done it at least once before."

Cuddy's face turned red, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

"How dare you!" she hissed. "You don't know anything about it! You don't know what . . ."

"I DO know about it. I'm not just some ignorant shlemiel you're talking to. I spoke to Greg. I saw his eyes. And I KNOW that man would never have given up on you. Never. So then it's you who must have given up on him."

Cuddy lowered her eyes in shame for a brief moment. But Arlene caught the look and understood its meaning.

"You broke up with him and went scampering back to Lucas because something scared you," she continued. "And I'm sure that whatever frightened you wasn't half as scary as what Greg's facing now, the pain, the medications, the months of physical therapy . . ."

Cuddy's voice grew louder, emboldened by the familiarity of arguing with her mother. "I'm a doctor mother. I'm well aware of what's ahead for House."

"Lisa," Arlene's tone and features turned stonily serious, "All I'm saying is that it's you who has to be strong now. Strong enough for him to lean on, strong enough to keep going even when you want to quit, strong enough for the both of you."

Indignation blazed in Cuddy's blue-green eyes as she stood up and walked round the bed toward her mother. "I HAVE been strong! I saved his leg! I saved his life! The others were ready to give up. I saved him! No one else did that! Only me!"

"I'm not talking about being strong as a professional, as a doctor," Arlene said, cutting across her daughter's impassioned speech. "You've always been strong in that regard."

Cuddy's eyes widened. Her mother rarely, if ever, paid her a compliment. Before she found her voice however, Arlene went on.

"I'm talking about being strong as a WOMAN. Because that's what Greg needs now."

Cuddy stepped back, a shocked look on her face. "I've always been strong when it comes to House. I . . ."

"No," Arlene interrupted her again. "Just the opposite. You've NEVER been strong when it comes to Greg. If you had been, you would never have dumped him and taken back up with Lucas."

Cuddy's mouth moved, but no sound came out.

"The kind of strength I'm talking about doesn't come from your medical knowledge," Arlene said. "It's not gathered from what you've learned in your education, in books or your career. A woman's strength comes from her heart. And so far, you've let Greg down on that score. And by letting him down, you've let yourself down too. The kind of strength you're gonna need now is the kind that makes you fight for the man you love, fight everyone, the whole world, even Greg himself for what you feel in your heart, for what's right. Greg already showed you his strength, that he was willing to sacrifice everything, even his love for you for YOUR happiness. Are you certain you're ready to do that for him? Because if not, then you'll never be worthy of him or of his love. You can't only love someone when they're at their best. That's when they need it the least. You have to love and accept the other person when they're at their lowest because that's when they need your love the most."

Cuddy continued to stagger back. She was halfway across the room when she finally spoke.

"I love him. I do," she whispered. Cuddy exhaled heavily, slumping her shoulders forward as if a huge invisible weight pressed down upon her. "But . . ."

"But what?"

Cuddy rolled her eyes to the ceiling and closed them. "It's just so . . . hard. I didn't know . . ." She stopped, too choked up to speak.

"Of course it's hard," Arlene said softly. "Everything easy passes away and is forgotten quickly. The only things in life truly worth having are hard."

"I don't know if I can . . . I don't think I can . . ."

Arlene straightened up in her chair. "Then you're a fool who doesn't deserve him."

Cuddy looked back at her mother, her eyes filling with tears.

"Mom, I . . . I don't know what to do."

"If you can't take the bitter with the sweet, if you won't fight for him, if you only want what's easy then he'd be better off if you abandoned him right now instead of when he's crippled and broken and he's had the heart ripped out of him because he's shattered in body and spirit."

The tears flowed freely down Cuddy's pale cheeks as her gaze shifted from her mother to the sleeping House and back again.

"You CAN do it Lisa. I KNOW you can. You just have to stop doubting yourself. You have to stop being afraid."

"Afraid?"

"Of life. Of love. Of the power of the love that this man STILL, even after everything that's happened, has for you. And don't be afraid of your own feelings for him. Let your love for each other strengthen you. Let your love conquer your fear. That's the only way you two can ever be together."

Cuddy stood frozen in place, her tears continuing to fall in rivulets along the sides of her nose.

Arlene smiled with satisfaction as her daughter moved back around to House's other side. Her smile quickly faded however as Lisa made no move to sit down in her former place. Instead, Cuddy leaned forward, closing her eyes as she planted a lingering kiss on House's cheek.

She straightened up and met her mother's confused gaze.

"I can't," she said. And without another word, strode quickly from the room.


	16. Chapter 16

**16.**

Wilson took his own sweet time. He knew instinctively that mother and daughter were trembling on the brink of something major, either a much needed heart-to-heart or a fistfight. He had already determined to make a quick exit long before Arlene Cuddy gave him a meaningful look.

But when she did, her unspoken message only served to hasten his departure. Wilson was smart enough to require no further urging.

Quite frankly, the last place James Wilson wanted to be was in the middle of a war of words between two opinionated, domineering women. And as onlooker to such a fray, Wilson knew he was in very grave danger of being required, by one or the other, to choose sides. His instinct for self preservation duly noted that the involvement of his current boss was reason enough to beat a hasty retreat and avoid the gathering storm.

Even though the ramifications of choosing sides against his boss and friend, Lisa Cuddy, would be dire, Wilson could not help but feel a strong pull toward the opposite direction. For he felt genuinely obliged to Arlene Cuddy for positively influencing her daughter on the subject of his best friend, Gregory House.

Nothing he had said or done since Cuddy had broken up with House had seemed to sway her thoughts or feelings in the slightest. But obviously, whatever Arlene discussed with her daughter after she interrupted the wedding ceremony had been earth shattering enough to finally make Lisa see she was about to make a terrible mistake by falling into a trap of her own misguided design.

When Cuddy came out of her room to witness the argument between Wilson, Julie and Lucas her appearance seemed to suggest that the scales had finally fallen from her eyes. She saw Lucas for the man he was, a coward who had taken his jealousy and aggression out on a cripple. He could never be worthy of the commitment of marriage with a person like herself.

Wilson had seen it in her eyes as soon as she opened the door. She was thinking of House. Somehow, Arlene and the rabbi helped Cuddy to realize she was still in love with him. Wilson's heart leapt at the prospect that she had finally, gratefully submitted to that understanding and to all that her love for someone as complex as House would entail.

Whether House and Cuddy could make it together long term was not the issue. The soul of the matter lay in Cuddy's inability to face her true feelings for Gregory House and his for her. Until they worked through their love for each other, they would never truly be free – free to forgive each other and move on together or to release each other and travel forward on their separate paths.

But Wilson seriously doubted whether these two flawed individuals, so hopelessly entangled with one another, could ever truly advance in their lives without each other. They were inextricably linked within the grip of a seemingly magnetic hold, stronger even than the moon's pull upon the tides.

Since the breakup, Cuddy had been like the waning moon, hollow, distant and cold, shrinking further into herself, hiding herself away from her friends and loved ones, even her own daughter and burying herself in her work.

And House, House had been utterly wrecked. A shell of his former self, House was, in Wilson's opinion, in an even worse position than he had been after his breakup with Stacey. For this time, Wilson was sure, House had been in love, perhaps more in love with Cuddy than anyone else he'd ever known.

House not only had his heart shattered, he'd also lost what little hope he'd had left. It seemed all his ideas of happiness were pinned to the success of his romantic relationship with Cuddy so that when she broke up with him, everything else positive and hopeful had been ripped away from him as well.

Seeing his two best friends thusly had torn Wilson apart. And he felt completely powerless to help either one of them.

Nor could he hinder them from their individual spirals toward self destruction. He knew at some point, Cuddy would break out from her downward spiral, either for herself or on behalf of her daughter.

But House's emotional nose dive would not be abated.

Wilson ruefully observed that Lisa Cuddy had crippled his best friend twice in his life. The first time, it had only been House's leg. The second time, her incapacitation of House was far more complete and devastating.

For this last time, unless something was done on Cuddy's part to make some sort of amends or to give an indication that she at least still cared for House, Wilson innately knew that his best friend would never recover. House would continue on his current path in what would eventually become a long, drawn-out, suicidal fall to the very depths of his own hell.

Wilson glanced at his watch. He had already allowed what he thought was a reasonable amount of time to pass before returning to House's room. He'd unhurriedly finished his rounds on the oncology floor before going to the pharmacy and retrieving a prescription of valium for Cuddy.

He figured that by this time whatever needed to be done or said between mother and daughter would be finished and done with. And Lord knew that after yet another confrontation with her mother, Cuddy would probably need some sort of sedative.

As he made his way back to House's room, Wilson was unsure of exactly what he would find when he got there. Would the feminine altercation result in any physical destruction? Or would the two participants retreat to their separate corners like boxers preparing for the next round?

What he did not expect was what he actually found. Arlene sat alone next to House. She was wiping her eyes in a gesture that implied she had been crying for some time.

"Arlene? What happened? What's going on? Where's Cuddy?"

Arlene turned to face the approaching Wilson. She straightened in her chair, preparing to defend herself.

"James. I am in no mood . . ."

"I don't care what mood you're in. Where's your daughter? House will be waking up soon. Cuddy needs to be here."

Arlene put something in her purse and stood up, preparing to leave. "I don't feel like answering your questions," she said. "And I don't care for your tone."

Wilson raked a shaking hand through his thick, dark hair. His guilt and fears over House and Cuddy had frayed his nerves, making them like over-tightened piano wire. Just another turn of the key, just a little more tension and he would snap.

"And I don't need this crap from you. Why can't you answer a simple question? Unless . . ." Wilson's eyes began to widen with both understanding and incredulity. "What did you say to her? What did you do to chase Cuddy away from the man she loves just when he need's her the most?"

At these words, Arlene did what was to Wilson the most extraordinary thing. Instead of yelling and arguing back, she broke down sobbing, sitting down hard into her chair.

"Lisa doesn't know her own mind. She . . . she doesn't know if she loves Greg enough to . . ."

"What did you say to her?" Wilson was livid.

"Lisa doesn't like to face the reality of a situation," Arlene choked. "She only sees what she wants to see, how things should be instead of how they really are. She's always needed to be pushed to face the truth, to face her fears."

"Pushed? After everything she's gone through in the last 48 hours you . . . pushed her? You don't think that maybe you should have waited? That maybe you pushed her too hard?" he yelled.

"She was looking for the easy way out . . . again. Just like she did before, just like when she went running back to Lucas. She can't keep doing that. Not to Greg. Not to herself. She has to stand up and fight for what she really wants, for who she wants, for the man she truly loves."

"And you chose to tell her that NOW?"

Arlene had stopped crying. She went into full defense mode.

"When push comes to shove, Lisa has ALWAYS performed well under pressure. She needs to be pushed to see beyond herself and what she wants, to see the right way of doing things."

Wilson exhaled loudly, shaking his head. He knew there was truth in what Arlene was saying, he could not deny that fact. House had long ago relayed this same observation about Cuddy to him. Hell, he'd witnessed the validity of it himself.

For weeks he had been struggling with Cuddy's flagrant disregard for House's feelings and the denial of her own. Wilson had known her long enough to see what a mistake she was making. And of course, her mother had known her and seen these familiar behavior patterns play out time and time again.

Wilson struggled to keep his voice even as he spoke. "I'm not saying that maybe you're not right. Cuddy needs to face some truths about herself, about House, about the both of them together. But what I AM saying is that your timing is questionable."

Arlene inhaled deeply and held the breath. Finally, she closed her eyes and exhaled, nodding her head in agreement with Wilson.

"I need to go talk to your daughter. And I need you to stay here with House until I get back. Can you do that?"

Arlene nodded again.

"Good. Have me paged when he starts to wake up. Hopefully, I'll be back before then. Hopefully, Cuddy will too."

He turned to go.

"James?"

He stopped in the doorway but did not turn around.

"Good luck. And . . . thank you."

Wilson continued on his way, shaking his head as his thoughts whirled like dry leaves in a gust of wind. He walked quickly over to the elevators and pressed the down button. As the doors slid open and then closed behind him, he desperately tried to martial his courage and his thoughts before facing Cuddy.

He knew he needed to intercede on House's behalf. Yet, the last time he had done so, the encounter had ended in total disaster. House continued to wheel out of control as Cuddy, having cut the legs out from under him, closed herself off and hid in her office.

No amount of coaxing or wheedling worked on either of them. Wilson had felt so helpless and hopeless. He hurt for the both of them.

The elevator doors opened on the lobby and Wilson strode forward toward Cuddy's office. He did not kid himself. She would be there, sitting silently in the dark, no doubt awaiting his arrival.


	17. Chapter 17

**17.**

Cuddy sat alone in her darkened office absentmindedly drumming her fingers on the desk. She'd drawn the blinds and closed the curtains so that the room's only illumination came from a solitary desk lamp and the meager light spilling through her glass office doors from the hospital's main lobby.

She was hiding. But whether she was hiding from anyone she knew or from herself, she could hardly tell.

What did her mother want her to do?

Cuddy buried her face in her hands. Her whole life, she'd asked herself this singular question. Whether in reality or within the echoes of her own mind, it had always been her mother's voice acting as her harshest critic, continually pushing Lisa far beyond the boundaries of what was safe or familiar. Arlene Cuddy would forever be the force behind her eldest daughter's compulsion to go beyond her limits, to excel.

For Cuddy, the consequence that arose from this lifelong, maternal pressure was a heightened sense of insecurity whenever she tried to make decisions on her own. She wanted . . . no, needed her mother to weigh in on nearly every subject either literally or in her own imagination. Cuddy perpetually shackled her opinions in conjunction with her mother's viewpoint and seldom, if ever, separated the two.

This inner dependency on her mother's approval was part and parcel of what made her an excellent administrator, a savvy player within the political environment of PPTH, successfully bargaining with donors, insurance companies and unions. But in the final analysis, when push came to shove Lisa tended to defer to the opinions of others particularly her mother. Neither could she by any means stand up to her mother or Arlene's overbearing opinions in real life.

That was until the night House stood by her.

Cuddy remembered the few short months before when her mother had been admitted as a patient to PPTH. Overstepping the boundaries both as House's lover and employer, Lisa had insisted that he diagnose and treat her mother. It had been House, true to form and in the eleventh hour who championed Lisa and gave her the support and courage she needed, goading her into finally facing up to Arlene.

Her mother had decided to leave the hospital against medical advice, at night during a tremendous thunderstorm. But the storm outside was nothing compared to the tempest that raged within Cuddy's shadowed office. Or the whirlwind that beat within their hearts as House and Cuddy faced off with one another.

In the end, House confronted Cuddy with the harsh truth; that he would forever be blamed should something happen to Arlene and then that false accusation would grow like a vine, not only destroying their relationship but crippling Lisa's future happiness as well.

It was this incontrovertible reality that made Lisa concede that she was still, in many ways doing what she thought her mother wanted rather than what she knew in her heart to be right.

"Get me back my patient," House had said, his blue eyes blazing as if lit from within by his passion and resolve.

In that moment of clarity in which time itself seemed to slow down, Cuddy found she was unable to ignore his straightforward directive. House forced her to the realization that standing up to her mother was the only way to save Arlene's life and by association her own as well.

Cuddy ran outside and ordered her mother to return to House's care and cure.

But in the aftermath, Cuddy's new awareness regarding relations with her mother forced the pendulum to swing too far in the opposite direction. Instead of avoiding conflict with her mother, Lisa persistently sought it out. She became gung ho about arguing and rebelling against her mother's advice on ALL topics, even or perhaps especially when, her mother was right.

Like now.

After all that had happened, within the last year, within the last five weeks, within the last 48 hours, Cuddy began to see that what her mother wanted and what was truly right for her and her life were not necessarily at odds. Not at least when it came to House.

But now when she needed her mother most, to guide her, to tell her exactly what she was supposed to do, it was only now that her mother had taken a step back and told her she had to choose for herself the path that she would henceforth follow.

Cuddy raised her face from her hands, hot angry tears spilling down her cheeks. She was infuriated with her mother. Arlene had deserted her now that her daughter needed her most.

For it had been her mother after all who shined a light into the darkest recesses of her heart and shown her what truly resided there.

Or in actuality, _who_ truly resided there.

House.

No one within her frame of reference had ever measured up, had ever been so aggravating, so forceful, so exciting, so breathtaking, so gorgeous, so brilliant and so exasperating all wrapped up in one tall, stunning-eyed pain-in-the-ass package; a man who could make her heart skip by the merest glance or gesture, the sound of his voice setting her knees to knocking. The smell of his skin caused her mind to race with the most x-rated thoughts; what she wanted to do to him and what she wanted him to do to her.

Greg House had always made her feel like a teenager with her first serious crush. But her feelings for him were so much more than that. When she was separated from him, it felt like the walls were caving in and there was no breath in her lungs. He was so complicated and so . . .

The drumming on the desk stopped as Cuddy clenched her hands into fists.

Damned tempestuous, uncontrollable House . . . who'd shown up on her wedding day to throw a monkey wrench into the entire event and then had the unmitigated gall to take the high road.

After he'd kissed her, reminding her of all that she'd lost and was about to lose forever, the self-righteous bastard walked away from her. But not for himself, House had left her for her sake and for the sake of her own happiness.

And then he'd insisted on riding that stupid motorcycle when he was in no condition to ride. Because of his own stubborn pride, he'd gotten himself into a cataclysmic accident and had to be brought into her hospital to be placed under her care and her responsibility. House had put up a terrific fight against all of them, the doctors and surgical staff, even her, in his effort to rush headlong toward death.

It had always been this way with him. House was so volatile, his actions and his life filled with such incredible highs and devastating lows. He railed against injustice, fought at every turn to prove he was right, plowed through rules and public opinion as if those things didn't even exist and he had crossed the line between sanity and insanity more than once in his never-ending struggle to balance his genius, his prescription drug abuse and his need to solve the puzzle in his high octane search for the truth.

But as crazed and boisterous and maddening as House was most of the time, Cuddy knew the other side of him as well. He was tender and loving and caring and vulnerable and needy, although he would rather walk across hot coals than admit any of that.

Even to the woman he loved.

For Gregory House had proven time and again that he loved her, still loved her, would deep in his heart, always love her. House had stumbled in their relationship, in his dealings with her and her daughter Rachel. But he had never fallen, never wavered in his love, his passion, his honesty to her, for her.

Unable to play false with her, afraid of failure and her subsequent rejection, House had even tried to warn her off. He'd told her at the very beginning of their relationship that he was, "the most screwed up person in the world."

Cuddy let loose one short, bitter, tear-sodden laugh. With a horrible sense of irony, it suddenly occurred to her that his statement could never be true. For the only person more screwed up than the most screwed up person in the world was the woman who loved him.

Thinking of House, Cuddy realized that she was not only angry with her mother, she was furious too with him. And what made her angriest most of all was the realization that she was mad with House _because_ she loved him.

Yes, she loved him, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was still in love with him. Her mother had been absolutely right on that score.

But she also feared him.

With a heavy sigh born of an aching shame, Cuddy admitted to her deepest sense of self that although she did indeed love House she had been, throughout the entirety of their relationship, afraid of him as well; the power he had over her, the way he held sway over her happiness.

While she loved House more than her very life, Lisa Cuddy had never been that dependent on another human being. No never, not even when she was a child.

And it terrified her.

That was why, from the outset, she had selfishly tried to control him, to take the lead in their relationship. Still cruising on the high from her ability to dominate and bully Lucas Douglas, she had tried many of the same techniques, the same restraints and manipulations on Gregory House.

Even after she'd promised House that she loved him for who he was, she went back on her word to him and done everything in her power to threaten and cajole him, to force him into changing who he was for her and her daughter, for how she thought he should present himself for consumption by the outside world.

Cuddy saw now all the times she had allowed her fears to get the better of her, the times she'd so often misjudged, misunderstood and forsaken him.

She considered now that at every turn, House had sacrificed himself, his own better judgment, even staying clean for her and their relationship. House had thrown it all away, his nearly two years of Vicodin abstinence.

He had taken the drug only so that he could temporarily stop the screaming in his head, in his heart and in his leg, stop it just long enough to be there for her, to hold her hand and take his rightful place by her side when she was afraid.

How afraid had House been? Her own fears and misapprehensions had made her miss the signs. She'd misinterpreted his actions, underestimated his heart.

Cuddy suddenly felt all the truth of this, in her own heart, her body, her mind, her soul. She began to shake and cry in earnest as the weight of her realizations buckled her under and down. She saw the recognition of House's heart in all his looks, all his lashing out, all his quiet moments and lastly, in his final, selfless act of letting her go.

And now she saw too with surprising lucidity that it had always been this way. House had continually sacrificed himself for her sake and for the sake of their relationship. House could be nothing but honest and truthful in his dealings with her. He could not but follow his heart.

Whereas all the while, Cuddy had ignored the truth that beat within her own.

She had never seen it before. Perhaps she had purposely blinded herself to the fact that her fears made her deny her own heart. Cuddy HAD been strong, as a professional, as House's doctor.

All that her mother had said about her had been true.

She had been strong _with_ House but never _for_ him, never truly on his behalf. Whenever it came to her heart, she had been weak. She never, ever had the strength as a woman, not with the only man she ever loved, not with House.

When House had been himself, she punished him. When he had questioned her motivations, she gave him the cold shoulder. When he had shown her his fears and reservations, she turned a blind eye to him.

And at the first inkling of rough seas in their relationship, she had weighed anchor, cut the cables and run. No matter how she tried to rationalize her behavior, her actions and reactions toward him, she knew she had come up short.

For when House had opened his heart to her, when he needed her the most, she had abandoned him.

And now, House was in dire need once more. And once more, she was abandoning him.

Her tears fell thick and rapid, obscuring her vision, showing no signs of abating. For in the end, more than her mother and even House, the person Cuddy was most angry with was herself.

And only now on the verge of losing him forever did Cuddy see the errors in judgment and action that had gotten them both to this point.

What a selfish fool she'd been. Was she forever doomed to see the truth only after it was too late?

Cuddy had no idea.

The only thing Lisa Cuddy knew for sure, the only truth she could still cling to was that she did not just _want_ Gregory House. She loved him, needed him. She could not deny that over the course of the last 48 hours, the affirmation that her heart could simply not withstand the permanent loss of House from her life had been greatly underscored.

But she also knew that all she felt for House was simply not enough.

Cuddy just could not be sure of herself. What if House lost his leg or was confined to a wheelchair? Could she be strong enough for him, for the both of them if those circumstances were to occur?

Would their mutual love for one another ever be enough? Could she ever show the strength that House had shown? Could she let him go for his happiness, for his own good? Or did she need him too much? Would she selfishly deny everything and everyone else to do what was right only for her? What was the right decision for both of them?

Above the sounds of her amplified sobbing, Cuddy heard the outer doors to her office open and close. She snatched a tissue from the box on her desk and dabbed at her eyes, trying to compose herself.

She knew who had entered long before her vision cleared. She had expected him. In a way, she had been waiting for him.

But the time alone hadn't given her any answers. She didn't know any better now what she was going to do or what she would or could say to him than when she'd first sat down at her desk.

Cuddy didn't know how she would defend herself to Wilson or even if she should. For the fact that she had, once again turned away from the love of her life and had ignored her own heart was, in the end, an indefensible position.


	18. Chapter 18

**18.**

Wilson strode quickly into Cuddy's office, pausing just long enough to allow his eyes time to adjust to the relative darkness.

All the things he'd thought to say, all the arguments that he'd raised and contested in his own mind as he rode the elevator to the main lobby, all the pent up anger and frustration he'd felt ever since his two best friends had set about destroying their own lives and any chance they had individually or collectively for some kind of real happiness all vanished as he found himself dumbstruck at the sight laid out before him.

Lisa Cuddy, PPTH's uncompromising Dean of Medicine and one of his best friends in the world was sobbing uncontrollably in the dark.

Pain. They were all in such incredible pain.

Wilson bowed his head as he tried to think how he, House and Cuddy had reached this point. More importantly, how were they ever to climb out of the deep, dark hole wherein they all now found themselves?

And who had been the first to fall?

The answer to that question was obvious. It was, would somehow always be House. House dug the hole into which first he, then Cuddy and now Wilson were all entrapped.

Battered and heartbroken when the woman he loved callously dumped him, House set about his self-destructive, downward plunge immediately after Cuddy had abruptly cast him off. But though it may have been House who first set about excavating the hole, Wilson mused that it was undeniably Cuddy who had handed House the shovel.

Unwilling to talk to House or give him another chance and totally disinclined to listen to her own heart, Cuddy had been the true engineer behind the suffering they were all currently experiencing.

Yet oddly enough, though Wilson was more disposed to seek out a scapegoat, House himself had never actually blamed Cuddy for their resultant misfortunes.

Angry? Yes. Hurt? Without a doubt, especially when Cuddy reconciled with Lucas.

But while Wilson seemed to be desperately searching for someone on whom he could pin the blame for their present troubles, reproaching Cuddy for her abandonment of him did not seem to be in House's makeup. It was more like House had actually _expected_ her at some point to desert him, as if their entire relationship were merely a pleasant dream from which he must too soon awaken.

The fact remained that House simply anticipated nothing but misery in his own life. He saw it stretching out before him like a long grey highway on the edge of darkness with no end in sight, the only variance to his usual levels of suffering, the occasional greater degrees of torture interspersed like road signs along the way. It was as if, after Cuddy had left him, House had finally accepted his fate: that he had no right or even hope to be happy, that the only thing he could expect from life was ceaseless sorrow and loneliness to the end of his days.

Only now did Wilson consider that perhaps it was House's unvarying concentration of pain, both physical and emotional, which enabled him to handle true hopelessness better. For House it seemed would forever be too well acquainted with his constant companions, despair and pain and so somehow forced to deal with them.

Yet no one else could possibly take the credit for House's persistence in punishing himself when things went wrong. It was always House who made matters worse by deciding to soak himself in booze, take too many pills and push people away who were only trying to help.

Or maybe Wilson just needed to try and assuage some of his own guilt by tenaciously clinging to that conviction.

For Wilson had to believe that he and Cuddy were different.

Unaccustomed to suffering, Wilson and Cuddy tended to think they could rise above it. Indeed, they kept themselves aloof from those who experienced it, including House. By wrapping themselves in the cloak of security of the impartial medical professional, they purposefully set themselves apart as they stood outside the fray. But this extreme disconnect gave them a false sense of security, even superiority to those who remained writhing in agony down in the trenches.

Like House and his daily, constant struggles with pain as well as his preferred method of blocking it, prescription drug abuse.

Only now did Wilson realize that their detachment served, not to strengthen them but rather to tire and weaken them whenever true adversity came along.

Like now.

"Well Wilson?" Cuddy said, the timbre of her voice jerking him from his own, depressed thoughts. "What did you want to tell me? Did you come here to tell me how badly I've screwed things up? Again? Why don't you say it? Why don't you just say what you came here to say and then get out and leave me in peace?"

"Do you honestly think you deserve to get off that easy?" Wilson replied, surprising himself with his own candor.

Cuddy let loose a high-pitched, almost maniacal laugh that sent a thrill of fear along his spine.

"Deserve? Deserve? I don't know Wilson. Why don't you tell me what I deserve? You told me after I broke up with him what House deserved, that he deserved another chance. So now what do I deserve?"

Wilson shook his head. "I . . . I don't know. I really don't know Cuddy. What do you _think_ you deserve?"

Cuddy's chilling laugh echoed through the room again. "To go straight to hell, if there is one."

"No you don't. You don't believe that. I don't believe that. Not even House believes that."

Cuddy looked up at Wilson. Even in the dark, he could see her red, swollen eyes, her tear-stained cheeks.

"House doesn't believe in heaven or hell," Cuddy spat out. "But I do. I know there's a hell because I'm already there."

Wilson folded his arms across his chest.

"Only because you put yourself there. But you can escape a hell of your own making Cuddy. If you got yourself in there, you can get yourself out."

"Really? How?"

He cast his eyes to the floor and relaxed his shoulders almost imperceptibly. "You're the only one who can answer that I'm afraid. Because you're the only one who knows how you got there."

"But I don't know. I don't know how I got here, to this point. Don't you understand?" she nearly shrieked as she continued. "I have no idea how I pushed the only man I've ever loved out of my life and nearly married the wrong man. And I have no idea how to get the one man I'll always love back. I don't even know if I deserve to have him back."

"Cuddy, one thing House has taught me is that none of us get what we deserve. NONE OF US. We only get what we get or only what we're willing to go after. So I guess the question really is, are you willing to go after what you want? Are you willing to go after the man you SAY you love? Are you willing to go after House and be there for him?"

The room was hushed and silent. The only sounds were Cuddy's regular sniffing. Wilson finally raised his eyes to meet hers just as she spoke. Her voice shook so badly and was so quiet, that he nearly could not hear her words.

"I don't know."

Wilson closed his eyes, a flood of emotions roiling inside his chest. He desperately wanted to shout, to yell at her or grab hold of her and lift her out of her too high heeled shoes and shake some sense into her.

"How can you NOT know? After ALL that's happened? After everything you've seen and heard and felt? After EVERYTHING House did? Or more importantly, didn't do?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Cuddy!" Wilson shouted. He had reached the end of his tether. All of his worry for House's life, his frustrations with him and Cuddy both, his argument with Cuddy's mother, all of his own trepidations, his fears, his anger, his guilt over his inability to fix the problems in his own life or the lives of his friends seemed to bubble over, blurring his vision and settling a weight, like a huge stone upon his heart and lungs.

"House drank himself into oblivion the night before your wedding. Then he showed up at your wedding. But then what? He DIDN'T try to ruin it for you. He doesn't make a scene. He doesn't scream at you from the rooftops about what an idiot you are. All the socially unacceptable, embarrassing, crazy things that we both know are within the realm of what House is capable of, NONE OF IT. He doesn't do ANY of it. He doesn't start a fight with you or your mother. Hell, he doesn't even start a fight with Lucas. Crap! Lucas who deserves a first class ass-kicking. Okay, so I take back what I said before about no one deciding whether people deserve stuff. Because Lucas sure as hell deserves to have House insert his cane so far up his ass that it can only be removed by surgery."

Cuddy paused for a moment and then she began to laugh. Her laugh this time however did not sound quite so hollow and erratic.

Wilson's vivid description of House brought back a flood of memories. She remembered House as he looked when he had first walked into her bedroom on Saturday. How familiar and yet exciting it felt when their lips met, how wonderful it was to see him again, hear his voice again, kiss him again. And how terrible it was to see him walk away as he wished her nothing but happiness, telling her that was what she deserved.

She laughed again, her love for House infusing itself into the sound, giving it a warmer more mellow tone.

When Wilson heard Cuddy's laugh, now robbed of its former bleakness, he chuckled too in spite of himself.

"Well?" he said. "Am I wrong?"

"No. You just gave me quite an image. After what Lucas did to House . . ." She broke off. The smile melted from her face and she looked down at her desk.

"It's too late Wilson. There's been too much that's happened, too much said and way too much unsaid. If you're going back on what you said about people getting what they deserve, then so am I. House . . ." His very name made her tremble inside. "House deserves so much more. More than I can give him."

"And it doesn't matter to you, even now, what HE wants? Are you still going to be that selfish about this?"

Cuddy stood up abruptly. Even in the darkened office, Wilson could see her anger coloring her cheeks.

"Is that what you think? That I'm being selfish? That I'm . . ."

"Yeah! Either selfish or scared or just plain stupid. Pick one Cuddy. You can't have it all. Not now. Not when House is a couple floors above us, fighting for his life!"

Cuddy reacted like she'd had the wind knocked out of her. With a slight moan, she collapsed back into her chair.

"Didn't it ever occur to you that I'm poison to House, to his recovery, to his life? I drove him back to his pills after nearly two years of him being clean. That was all me Wilson. All my fault."

"His choice to take Vicodin again was NOT your fault. Just like it had nothing to do with you when he kicked his habit . . . again."

"What?"

"House didn't tell me but I've seen the changes in him. He's off the Vicodin again. He's in more pain but he's been managing. And, more importantly, he hasn't been stealing scripts from me or anyone else. He's clean Cuddy. And he did it on his own. Without you or me or Mayfield or anybody else."

Cuddy's eyes burned with the fresh tears that welled up into them.

"I'm scared Wilson," she said quietly. It felt like some of the weight had lifted from her shoulders at this simple statement of fact, the first time she'd ever said it out loud or admitted it to another soul.

Wilson took a step forward, uncrossing his arms so he could use his hands to lean against the edge of her desk.

"I know," he replied. "I know you are. But so is House."

Cuddy released one short bark of a laugh. "House is the bravest man I know. He's never scared."

Wilson would not let go of Cuddy's gaze but held it, letting her recognize the truth of his next words.

"House has ALWAYS been afraid. How can you love him and know so little about him? How can you not see that he's always been afraid . . . of pain, of being alone, of losing you? And mostly, House was afraid of how very much he loved you. Because maybe for the first time in his life, he let his rational mind take a backseat to his emotions and it scared the hell out of him."

He shook his head but still looked into her eyes.

"Both of you have let your fears win and your hearts lose," Wilson continued. "You let your fear of public opinion and House's instabilities keep you from the only man you've ever loved."

Wilson cut her off before she had a chance to protest. "Your words, not mine Cuddy. And House, House has let his fear of eventual pain and not being good enough for you paralyze him, making him unwilling or unable to show how deeply he loves you."

It was Cuddy who was now shaking her head. "But how do you know? How can you be sure?"

Wilson straightened up. "Because House believes that actions are more important than words." He sighed. "And how did he _act_ to you on the day of your wedding to another man?"

Cuddy sat in stunned silence for several moments and then said sadly, "He said he wanted me to be happy, that I deserved to be happy."

"But what did he DO Cuddy?"

"The whole time, he acted like . . ." She bowed her head, no longer able to meet the sincerity of Wilson's eyes. "He acted like a man in love."

Wilson slowly nodded just as his pager went off. He took the device from his pocket and saw that the call was for House's room.

"I'm needed. House needs me. Are you . . . will you come?"

Cuddy looked up into the handsome features of her friend's face. But she gave him no answer.

Wilson turned and walked to the door.

He stopped just as he placed his hand on the doorknob. Without turning, he said, "How can you do this?" There was a quaver in his voice. "How can you throw away your love, his love, probably his life just because you're afraid?"

"I _saved_ his life Wilson. By saving his leg . . ."

"No Cuddy. If you won't go to him now, if you can't see . . . by saving his leg you've only postponed his death. His leg doesn't mean as much to him as you do. Nothing means as much to him as you. Not even his life. Only you. You ARE his life Cuddy."

And then with a sound that could have been a cough or a sob, Wilson left Cuddy all alone in the dark once more.


	19. Chapter 19

**19.**

The quiet whirring and beeping of machinery were the only sounds to meet his ears as he slipped like a phantom into the dimly lit room of the ICU. He paused just inside the doorway as if he were waiting, waiting for a sign to enter further.

A faint groan from the other side of the room forced him to shift his focus from the outer hallway to the direction of the bed. Another low moan, like the sound of distant thunder came from the only other occupant of the room before he was silent once more.

House. There were so many emotions wrapped up in that name, with that one man.

He moved forward, taking the clipboard from the end of the bed as he did so. Stepping into the glow of the only light in the room, the one directly over the sleeping House, he shifted his gaze briefly to look at the familiar face which, even in sleep, looked anguished and full of pain.

Could that mean that the sedatives the doctors had given him were wearing off? As he flipped through House's chart, a slow smile spread across his face.

After House's years of Vicodin abuse, it stood to reason that nothing but the most powerful drugs would do anything to relieve him of his pain. His body had become practically immune to medications that didn't practically knock him out or dope him up into a miasmic haze.

Yet because the doctors here at PPTH knew of House's prescription drug abuse and because he was also under the care of the overly meddling James Wilson and Lisa Cuddy, House would be denied the stronger meds necessary to relieve his acute pain. And judging from the chart's outline of the extent of his injuries, House's current pain was monumental.

As if on cue, House groaned again, his brow furrowing in obvious distress.

So the bastard was in pain? Good. If anyone deserved to be in pain, it certainly should be Gregory House.

Lucas Douglas leaned closer to his enemy's helpless form.

How easy would it be to kill him? He could place a pillow over House's face and smother him, inject him with an overdose of some nameless drug or just push an air bubble into his IV line.

But Lucas had not waited in a nearby broom closet all this time for that. He had no intention of giving House the quick and easy way out. No. Death and its merciful pain free release was too good for House.

Lucas looked over his shoulder to check the door. Cuddy's mother could return at any moment. Fortunately for him, the old battleaxe moved slowly with her bad hip and her cane. He knew he still had a few more minutes before she returned from the bathroom down the hall.

But what to do? Lucas' eyes moved smoothly from the charts to House. Why was House under restraint?

He flipped through the charts quickly and there it was. House's leg had been completely mangled in a traffic accident. He therefore needed to remain completely immobilized to keep him from reinjuring the leg. If he sustained any further injuries, the leg might need to be amputated.

Why, it was almost too perfect.

To Lucas' mind, House had always waved his disability around like a badge of honor. What he couldn't get through his intelligence, he obtained through manipulating others to feel guilty or sorry for him with his gimp leg and his cane. House's bad leg was a symbol, a symbol that he could have anything and anyone he wanted.

And the one person who House decided he'd wanted was the one person Lucas loved. For no one had fallen harder for House's intricate manipulations than Lisa Cuddy.

Lucas felt his heart seize up in his chest as he thought of her once more, how he almost had her for his own, forever, until the bastard lying in front of him limped back into their lives. His heart began to beat at a faster pace as both his love for Lisa and his hatred for House flooded his veins, shortening his breath and numbing his brain.

For a moment he couldn't move, he couldn't think. All he could do was feel. He felt the loss of her again and the anger for the man whom he blamed for all his current misfortunes.

It was the anger that jolted him out of his temporary paralysis. Lucas moved quickly and silently to the side of the bed and removed the straps that bound House down to the mattress.

And then he remembered his knife.

He couldn't be sure if he would have enough time, but throwing caution to the wind, Lucas took out his knife and began using its sharp, serrated edge on the cast enveloping House's right leg.

The work went faster than expected thanks in part to the sharpness of his knife but also to the way the cast was set. Not particularly caring whether he inadvertently stabbed House while he worked didn't hurt to make the work go quickly either.

But sooner than expected, House's leg was laid open and bare. Its black bruises, ragged red sutures, silver metallic supportive framework and screws stood out starkly against the white sheets of the bed. Lucas stood up and used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat that had formed on his brow.

He smiled. This was a good day's work.

House moaned again. His right arm twitched. The sedatives were definitely wearing off.

Good.

Now all that remained for him to do was to set his plan in motion. House would be, once again, the means to destroy himself.

Lucas leaned over House's prone form. He moved close to his victim's right ear and spoke to him for the first time.

"I told you to stay away from my wife you arrogant son of a bitch."

"No," House whispered, his eyelids fluttering slightly as he became more wakeful.

"Yes," Lucas hissed. He noticed with a perverse pleasure that House began to writhe in fear and pain. The more he moved, the more pain was brought on by his movements and the greater he struggled to escape the ensuing torment.

House's moaning became louder.

"Let's see how Lisa feels about you when they've taken off your leg and sawed you in half."

"Cuddy!" House screamed.

And he kept on screaming.

But by the time the alarms had sounded and the nursing staff rushed in, Lucas was already heading for the freight elevator. Just as he stepped onto the platform and the elevator doors closed behind him, he heard House's voice raised in a scream of utter panic and agony.

And Lucas Douglas laughed.


	20. Chapter 20

**20.**

The sound of his own heart hammering a regular cadence deep within his chest was deafening. After all the punishment that he'd doled out to himself over the years, the drug and alcohol abuse as well as his habit of chain smoking, that particular muscle remained surprisingly steady and strong.

Damn it all to hell.

What was wrong with the stupid thing anyway? Couldn't it take a hint? Or in this case, multiple hints?

More importantly, how could it go on beating when the woman he loved had smashed it into a million pieces?

It just couldn't be made of muscle, House knew. To him his heart felt more like blown glass, fragile, ephemeral and terribly transparent. Yet though it felt so very brittle, after all he'd endured, somehow, someway House's heart kept going, kept right on beating as if it were made of iron or steel.

Regardless how often he'd faltered, stumbled and fallen under the weight of misery that had become his daily existence, House too, like his heart, had always found the wherewithal to keep going. And because of that, because he had the courage to persevere, his pain and the consequent resilience he possessed in facing the hazards of this life were often minimized or worse, dismissed entirely.

No one ever guessed his true, breakable nature so well hidden inside the rough exterior he presented to the world at large. For Gregory House had always been an expert at protecting and concealing himself.

He had to be.

No matter the terrible blows his wrathful father struck upon his young frame. No matter that and worse, far worse, the brutality and tortures John House had with cruel regularity inflicted upon him as a child. And despite the many times his mother's eyes filled with tearful comprehension yet still turned away from her helpless, injured son, having grown up with a father who was prone to fly off into spectacular rages, making his only son the brunt of all his own disappointments and shortcomings, and a mother who simply ignored Greg's anguished cries for help, House had become, from an extremely early age and out of sheer necessity detached, hard and remote.

Or at least it seemed that way.

How different would it all have been if even one other person had bothered to look into his eyes? If only someone, anyone had taken the time to look past his carefully constructed outer shell?

It was all there in his eyes. There he could not hide. In the depths of that lavish blue, all the pain, all the sorrow, all the agony as well as all the intensity of feeling House both carried and experienced was written the emotional manuscript of the book of his heart. Indeed, his true inner nature could be glimpsed in his eyes, bound between the covers of House's grouchy, misanthropic, son-of-a-bitch exterior.

It was in fact the most brilliant of disguises, fashioned by House during his formative years and refined to a keenly-edged binding as his life careened through an unending series of cruelties compounded by tragedy all of which he took so deeply to heart.

Conceivably the most mortal blow fell when he'd suffered the aneurysm that caused the infarction that destroyed both his leg and his life. Plunged into daily, excruciating pain, that and his feelings of betrayal surrounding the incident had successfully stolen away Stacey, the woman he loved. When she left him, she took with her the last vestiges of hope that he could ever be happy.

Yes, that had been the last time he'd foolishly allowed himself the luxury of hope . . . until Lisa Cuddy became part of his life.

Then everything he'd ever wished for or cared about seemed to crash in upon him like the last wave of a tsunami. All his veiled feelings, all his private dreams and expectations had come together into a single individual.

And that had been his crucial mistake, to put all his faith and hope in another person, in ONE other person.

House fell for her, fast and hard. To him, Cuddy was like a star upon which he'd hoped to ascend to the heavens.

In reality she had been merely a meteorite that crashed him violently back to earth leaving him in a deeper, darker pit of despair than he'd ever experienced before, even during the wretched days following his infarction and breakup with Stacey.

Yet House couldn't or more accurately wouldn't blame Cuddy. He could never find it in his heart to do so. No matter how badly she'd injured him and torn his heart asunder, he'd found to his own amazement, that he still loved her.

He loved her. And he kept right on loving her after all that had happened between them, all the anguish she'd forced upon him, all the pain she'd put him through. He knew he would continue to love her even after she was married to another man.

And House, the ultimate atheist, believed that he would not stop loving her even after the last breath stole from his tired, battered body, the final pulse stilled his weary, broken heart.

Yes, House still loved her and at the same time hated himself for loving her. And he just plain hated himself.

But how could he not? He would never deserve someone like Lisa Cuddy. Yet he had dared to covet her anyway.

Stupid dreams. False hopes. Foolish heart.

House continued to lay there in the twilight of his dreams and waking nightmares, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. And resenting every single beat it metered out.

Why couldn't he just . . . die? House both feared and craved that lasting end. He knew it was not death itself so much that he wanted, but an end to his agony, to the thoughts that plagued him at off times in the middle of the night. Or even now while he lay in a coma.

For him there was never any escape. House felt the full spectrum of human emotion. His love for Cuddy was all-encompassing even as his own self-loathing was absolute.

When had this supreme hatred of himself been born? Was it something that had been transmitted through every kick and blow and lash his father had rained down upon him? Had all the persecution House endured occurred with such regularity that the bruises eventually penetrated his physical body into his very soul? Or had his father's brutality been merely a reaction to the evil that already existed within Greg from birth?

House didn't know.

All he knew was the beatings meant that he could never be loved. Not by someone as universally respected and feared as his father. Not by someone just as unanimously loved as his mother. No, not by anyone.

It was simple logic. House must have been bad from the start. That's why he'd been tortured as a child.

And then as an adult, everyone treated him as an outcast. So House, acting within the parameters of logic, of cause and effect, felt obligated to fill that role. Everyone was happy.

Except of course for House.

But could he help it if no one took the time to understand him, to really see him for who he was? Was it his fault that no one, not even those closest to him, saw that he really did have a heart, a conscience and that he really did care about others?

Yet House reasoned that perhaps it was better in the long run to be despised for a part you played rather than to reveal your true nature . . . and then be rejected because of it. House had played his part so long and so well that he was no longer sure where the façade ended and he began, only rarely revealing the sensitivity that was his true nature.

As he had done with Cuddy.

Why had he opened his heart to her in the first place? And why were the shattered remnants of his heart STILL filled with thoughts and memories of her, only of her?

He should have known. He should have followed his head and not his heart. Cuddy had proved herself unworthy of his trust years ago . . . when she colluded with Stacey to perform the "middle ground" surgery which removed a huge portion of his thigh muscle against his wishes while he was in a chemically induced coma.

He knew it too from that very first day, instinctively knew that she would break his heart.

House had given her an out, several in fact. He'd reasoned with her about how he was "the most screwed up person in the world," how they could keep their relationship casual and continue to see other people (for her benefit of course, House did not want to see anyone else) and he explained to her that eventually she would realize that as a boyfriend, he was a terrible choice for a woman with a child.

But she'd argued him out of every deficiency, every possible snag in a shared romantic relationship. Cuddy told him that she loved him, that he was the most incredible man she'd ever known, that he didn't have to change for her or her daughter.

She lied. The fact that House believed that everybody lies was no consolation to him.

So how much worse had it been afterward, after he'd fallen in love with her, had gone ahead and given her everything, given her his heart while going against his own better judgment only to then have his initial suspicions proved right in the end? Then to have her take the heart he'd so honestly given her and smash it, throwing the remnants of it back in his face?

With Cuddy, House had tried, really tried to show her his authentic self, to be worthy of her love.

But it had all been for naught.

She had rejected him and in so doing, she had rejected the truest self he had dared show anyone. In so many ways, Cuddy had been like his father, demanding he be better, that in his race he run faster and leap higher than was humanly possible. Not to mention completely impossible for a man with a crippled right leg.

Cuddy's provisos for him had been so extreme that House could do nothing but fail and fail stunningly. His inevitable fall from such a great height and from a pure state of grace would unavoidably do more than hurt him.

It had destroyed him.

Yet, after all of this his aching heart kept resolutely beating.

And sleep, not even a coma could bring respite from the maddening regrets that plagued Gregory House. Nor was he spared the pain that tortured both his body and soul.

The anguish of this life would go on forever or so it seemed, leaving in its wake a shell of a man, misunderstood and wretched, without hope, without faith, without love.

House's groan sounded foreign and distant to his own ears. Yet he knew that it was he who had uttered the sound. The nightmares of his memories crowded round him like familiar strangers on subway. They pressed in upon him, making it difficult to breathe.

House groaned again, much louder this time, and the aching fog seemed to lift briefly before he was plunged into its lower depths.

Someone was hurting him. It must be his father. His terror at receiving another blow, another near drowning in ice-cold water, another stabbing and humiliating pain was too much to bear. House shook his head and began to tremble in near hysteria.

And then a voice, silken and horrible floated toward him, piercing his eardrums and muddying his mind.

"I told you to stay away from my wife you arrogant son of a bitch."

It was Lucas Douglas.

House's regret and self-pity were suddenly thrust aside in favor of the more dominant part of his personality . . . the fighter. He instinctively knew he must move to help himself.

And even more important than his own safety, even though she'd hurt him terribly, he knew he had to save Cuddy.

But the more he moved the more pain he incurred. It felt like Lucas was driving white hot spikes through his leg and chest. The pain worsened as House finally shirked his silent agony and began screaming.

He heard movement and voices around him but couldn't see, couldn't distinguish anyone, friend or foe. The pain was making House's brain sluggish and blotchy. He no longer defined anything in time or space. Suddenly there were more voices but he wasn't sure whether they we real or only in his own distraught mind.

He heard a laugh. It was his father, laughing at him as he pushed House beneath the surface of the tub filled with ice and water. For a moment, all was silent except for the sounds of his own breathing and heartbeat before a non-stop screaming began to echo through his head.

And then from a distance, he heard a familiar voice.

"What the hell is going on here? What the hell happened?"

"Wilson!"

House reached out wildly in his fear and pain for the only friend who'd ever stood by him, for the only one who could possibly save him.

In the darkness and escalating pain, House suddenly felt Wilson's hand clasp his own.

"What happened?" Wilson repeated. "Who did this to you?"

House was panting now, sweat coursing from every pore on his body.

"Dad!" And then more quietly. "He's coming. He's coming back. He'll kill me this time."

"House, your father's been dead for two years," Wilson reasoned. "Your father wasn't here. He didn't rip your cast off. He didn't do this to you." And then Wilson's voice sounded more distant as he addressed other unseen entities in the room. "Did anyone see anything? He couldn't have done this himself, removed his restraints and then his cast. Did anyone see someone enter or leave this room?"

"Just doctor Cuddy's mother," said another voice.

House felt a needle being jabbed into his arm and soon after relief, blessed liquid relief started flowing through his veins.

"Lucas," House said sluggishly.

"Call Cuddy. She needs to have security put the hospital on lockdown," House heard Wilson say.

"I'm here."

It was her. In the midst of his pain, out of the suffocating gloom, she had finally come. Hers was the voice he heard when he lay lost and alone at night unable to sleep. Her voice was as recognizable to him as his own, as familiar as the sound of his own heartbeat.

For she _was_ his heart.

"I was informed of the emergency here and already put the hospital on lockdown."

Still holding Wilson's hand in his right, House reached out with his left, extending his long fingers into the very heart of his own shadowy despair.

"Cuddy?" House said desperately.

"I'm here," the reply floated to his straining eardrums. He felt her small fingers interlace with his larger hand. "I'm here."

Closing his eyes, he began to drift again as he felt his heartbeat slow.

And then he smiled.


	21. Chapter 21

**21.**

"Oh God. Oh God," Wilson said. "Look at his leg. It looks like it's been through a meat grinder." He turned his head, speaking to the others in the room. "Get me the Propofol! Stat!"

"No!"

Two voices had spoken at once. But it was not only House who'd raised an objection.

"Cuddy," Wilson began, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. "You heard what Henreid said. And you know he won't survive another surgery to try to put this jigsaw puzzle of a leg back together again. It will have to be immediately amputated to save his life."

"No," House said weakly.

"No," Cuddy said again. "Not this time." She lowered her voice. She was amazed at how steady it sounded. "We're not going to force a surgery on him that he doesn't want even if we think it's for his own good. This time we're going to let House decide what happens to his body, to his leg."

"But Cuddy . . ." Wilson started to argue.

"No dammit!" Cuddy said, more loudly than before. "If I've learned anything from past mistakes, at least I've learned that. We're not keeping him out of the loop as if her were a child. Not again. Not this time."

Cuddy turned to address the staff, "No propofal for Dr. House. Not yet." She turned back to face Wilson. But as she did so, she glanced down at House. "This is one decision about his leg that WON'T be made while he's asleep. This time, House gets to choose for himself what the medical course will be. Understood?"

Everyone in the room was stunned into silence. Those few that could, nodded their heads but were still too shocked to speak.

Cuddy leaned forward over House whose eyes remained closed. Still holding his left hand, she gently caressed his long, elegant fingers with her thumb. She moved closer until she was inches away from his ear so that she could talk quietly to him and so that only he and Wilson, who stood close to House's other side still clasping his right hand, could hear.

"House? Can you hear me?"

House hummed his acknowledgment.

"How's the pain?"

"Scale of one to ten?" he said in a gasp. "I'd say about 15."

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes."

"It's your leg House," Cuddy said, her voice now shaking, "It's your decision."

He had her.

By God, if he'd believed in one . . . here, at last, after all that he'd gone through and suffered in his life, finally he'd been given the opportunity to set things right. Finally, God or fate or destiny or just pure luck had stacked the deck in his favor.

It was about damn time.

He'd heard what Wilson said, knew in his heart that he almost certainly would not survive another hours-long surgery. Wilson had mentioned even Doctor Henreid confirmed that fact.

What was more, House himself felt more keenly the weakened condition of his body. He knew in the marrow of his bones how close he'd already come to death and how close he still was to that final sleep that would take all his pain away.

House embraced the idea.

At the same time as death would release him from his tortured existence it would also bring about the irrevocable defeat of the one person who'd shattered him by breaking his heart. By dying, House would finally have his revenge on Lisa Cuddy.

He could hear it in her voice. Imagine it, for he had not yet opened his eyes, in the expression on her face. But this was the one thing, the final thing, power-hungry Cuddy could not control. House was now entirely on his own, far outside the realm of her rule. No permission or entreaties or even apologies were necessary. Cuddy had said it was up to him. He could exercise the option designed to give him the least painful outcome. As it stood now, death was that alternative.

And he could do it too. He could free himself from the pain of this life, finally be freed of the strangulating hold Cuddy had over him. Like scissors cutting a ribbon, House imagined himself free of everything, of all the despair, hurt and heartbreak he'd had to endure. For one pure moment, he could find release, relief, before the blackness of the void overtook him.

But not vengeance alone would his death serve upon Cuddy. In his own strange way House would also be setting _her_ free. Just as he would at long last be liberated from his pain, she would finally be released from the burden his unwavering love had placed upon her. Cuddy could, and no doubt finally would move on with her life. She could finally be happy.

And the idea that he could at long last make the woman he loved happy was the best reason for his own death.

Out of pain, selflessly releasing the woman he loved but with just a touch of payback thrown in . . . except for the fact that he himself would be dead, it was almost the perfect scenario. What did his fears of death, that undiscovered country, matter in the face of so much to be gained?

Though still in incredible pain, House felt like laughing.

"Fix it," he said, straining to keep the ache from his voice.

"What?" Wilson asked, sure he hadn't heard his friend correctly. "House, it can't be fixed. It's mangled, worse than before. Another surgery that long would . . ."

"Fix it!" House repeated. "No amputation."

"House, you almost didn't survive the first surgery," Cuddy interrupted. "You'll never survive another patch-up attempt. It will take too long. Besides, you can't take the anesthesia and your heart's too weak."

House opened his eyes and looked directly at Cuddy. She gasped at the utter despair, the fluid emotion that she saw deep within his silver-edged cobalt gaze.

"I know exactly," House said, "what condition my heart is in." His eyes connected so profoundly with hers, with such meaning and intensity, she swayed and had to struggle for a few seconds to remain upright.

"My heart's already dead. It's _been_ dead." he continued. "It just doesn't know it yet." House closed his eyes again. "Another surgery on my leg will rectify that situation."

"Is that was this is all about?" Wilson said. He dropped House's hand like it was a hot coal. "You taking your revenge? On who? On me? On Cuddy? On . . ."

"Did it ever cross your mind that maybe _I'm_ the only one around here who deserves revenge? Maybe for just this once it's not about you OR Cuddy. Maybe this is justice. Maybe this is the ultimate penalty for a life poorly lived. Or maybe, just maybe, this is the way things were always meant to be."

Wilson exhaled, the force of his breath sounding harsh as he expelled it between his clenched teeth. "So that's it?" he asked, his voice quaking with rage. "You know what you're risking here. You know what this means. You're choosing . . . you're making us accomplices in your suicide? Is that it? This is what you want?"

House opened his eyes again, this time directing his gaze at his furious best friend. A look of unutterable sympathy for Wilson crossed his features as he said,

"You can't always get what you want."

"But House," Cuddy said. "We're talking about your life."

House looked to Cuddy again. "Is that what we're talking about?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes." The tears rose quickly to her eyes. "And this is only a leg. It's just a damn leg. You don't think you deserve . . . to live?" Her voice cracked as she said this last and House saw the tears flow down her cheeks.

Somehow he kept his own tears in check as the terrible heartbreak of hearing and saying the exact same thing to the only two women he'd ever loved was brought to fruition. Echoes of the past surrounded him, swirling like insects in a summer wind.

"It's _my_ leg. It's my life."

"I can't," Wilson said. "I can't be a party to this."

House reached out and brushed his fingers against Wilson's arm. Wilson looked at him in surprise.

"It's okay Wilson. I understand. You have to do what you have to do . . . and so do I."

Wilson nodded his head and then, totally defeated, dropped his chin to his chest. Without another word, he turned and shuffled from the room.

House looked at Cuddy once more. Her tears streamed unabated down her face.

"You understand, don't you? It's what I want, the only thing left . . . that I can have."

Cuddy nodded and then turned to the staff still standing behind her.

"Prep him for surgery," she said before she too walked slowly from the room.


	22. Chapter 22

**22.**

Everything took on a surreal, déjà vu quality as House was readied for surgery. None of the staff spoke to him and since he himself had nothing further to say, the room remained eerily quiet. After awhile, he was wheeled through the hall for the last time to be positioned in the pre-op area.

But this trip to the operating room was different from the one before. House was no longer shouting or fighting. He lay there quiet and still on the table amongst people who were, for the most part, strangers to him. House felt more alone than he ever had in his entire life.

But he guessed this was somehow what he deserved. He'd finally succeeded in pushing everyone he knew and more importantly, everyone he loved away, out of his life. It was in one way or another appropriate then that he should be deserted, abandoned and so wholly alone at the moment of his death.

This then was right. This was justice.

He didn't have long to wait before he was taken through the double doors to the operating theatre itself. Surrounded as he was by the masked and gloved figures of his surgical team who would be the lead performers in this needless final drama of his life, House found them not dissimilar to the players in the Kabuki theatre he'd once seen as a kid while his father was stationed in Japan.

He was a little scared. But not as much as he thought he'd be. In fact, he was less afraid of his own demise than at the prospect of further pain.

He felt himself disengage from the discussion going on amongst his surgical staff as if they weren't talking about him and his surgery at all. Their voices began to fade into the background, becoming less clear and comprehensible. All of his senses in fact grew dull and slower. Maybe it was the drugs dripping into his bloodstream through the needle in his arm.

But House decided that drugs had nothing to do with this new sensation. For this was how it always was right before impact. This was how the dying were able to face death, their struggles over. This was how a bull elk felt when it was brought down by a pack of hungry wolves. Like the elk, House felt an overwhelming sense of disconnect that quieted his thoughts as surely as his physical reactions all in preparation for his final end.

The anesthesiologist approached him with a plastic mask held tightly in one hand. She brought it close to his face.

"Now breathe deeply Dr. House and count backwards from ten."

"Wait!"

The mask had not yet covered his nose and mouth. He could hear the sound of the gas, almost like the sound of the sea as the doctor raised the facemask up and away from him.

She was looking toward the door. In fact, everyone's attention was on the door. Or more exactly on the person who had lately entered through that door and shouted across the room.

House slowly turned his head in the direction the others were facing. He knew who it was before he even heard her, saw her. He had more than half expected her not to show.

But there she was, walking toward him. She was wearing a mask and surgical garb but he still knew her, knew the way she moved, recognized her eyes, everything about her.

He always had.

"Ah," House said as she walked over to stand next to him. "Why Dr. Cuddy. Or should I say, et tu boo-tay? I was just laying here wondering if you were going to make an eleventh hour hail Mary pass. Did you pay 30 pieces of silver for a last minute court injunction? Or were you just waiting until I was fully under sedation? Yes, that's your usual modus operandi for betrayal isn't it?" There was no concealing the bitterness in his voice as he said this last.

Cuddy said nothing. She silently reached out and took hold of House's hand.

"What?" he said. "No clever come back? I still haven't changed my mind you know." He paused to look around at the surgical team. "If ANYONE takes a saw to ANY of my limbs, against my EXPRESS permission, I will get the best damn lawyer to sue not only this hospital but all of you personally too. You'll all be out of work so fast your heads will spin like Linda Blair in the Exorcist."

"And you," he said, turning to look again at Cuddy, "You'll never be able to work here or anywhere else again for the rest of your pathetic career. You'll be lucky if they even let you administrate an Afghani brothel which in my opinion has always been your true calling from the very beginning."

She was crying again. Her face mask pressed close against her face as she breathed in, puffing out on her exhalation. The mask moved in and out more rapidly as her breathing quickened in juxtaposition with her fast-moving tears.

House was quiet for a few moments watching her in fascination as she cried.

"Cuddy? What?" House repeated. "Kind of busy here. Need you to tell me what you came here for so we can get this show on the road."

Cuddy blinked slowly, unable to stop the tears from falling.

House continued to look at her. Subtly, gradually, an overwhelming compassion for the woman he loved, who he still loved even after all this time, after all that had happened, shone in his eyes.

"What do you want Cuddy?" he said, his voice low and quiet. "Tell me."

"Just . . . just to be here . . . with you." She choked, a huge sob interrupting her speech, racking her breath. She held his hand more tightly in both of her own so that even through the sterile gloves, House could feel the heat of her skin, almost feel the softness of her touch.

"I didn't want you . . . I don't want you to be alone," she said. "Not now. Not ever. So I'm here House. I'm never leaving you. Not ever again."

House blinked slowly but his gaze never waivered.

"But . . . but _I'm_ leaving _you_," he said.

She nodded. "I know. I know," she said gasping. "And I can't stop you. But I can stay with you. I'll stay with you until you . . . until you go."

"You came here . . . you're not going to try and change my mind? You're not going to _force_ me to have the amputation? You're not going to _make_ me stay? You came here only to . . ."

"Only to stay with you. For as long as you want. For as long as you need. For as long as . . . for as long as it takes."

House never took his eyes off her, his eyes so large and luminous, sapphire and beautiful, filled with love and finally, understanding.

"For as long as I want? Even if what I want is an end to all this . . ." House took his hand and placed it above his leg. "And this . . ." He raised his hand again and laid it on his breast over his heart. ". . . all this pain?" he said, his voice breaking.

Cuddy nodded again. "What _you_ want House. _For_ you my love. Whatever you want. Not for me, for you. Only for you."

The hot tears pushing themselves forward made House close his eyes. How had this happened? How had they gotten here?

And how, knowing how it felt to carry a heart forever shattered within his chest could he break _her_ heart? How could he intentionally hurt the woman whom he would go through the fires of hell for, do anything in fact to keep her _from_ harm?

Now that he held her heart in his grasp, how could he do the same thing to her as she'd done to him? Now that he saw what his death would do to her, how could he crush her in such a way? Even if his own death meant a release from all his pain and suffering?

House opened his eyes again and saw her quietly weeping, still resolutely clutching his hand.

It was very quiet in the operating room. The anesthesiologist finally spoke up. "Are you ready Dr. House?"

House closed his eyes as if in submission.

Just as he felt the mask come close to his face he said, "No."

The mask was taken away a second time.

"What?" asked the doctor.

"I can't" House said. He opened his eyes to look once more at Cuddy. She had raised her eyes to his, her tears momentarily forgotten in her surprise.

"I won't," House said. "I can't. Not this. Not to you." Closing his eyes again he said more loudly, "I give my consent."

"What?" several voices raised in response to House's statement including Cuddy's.

"I consent to . . . I give my authorization for amputation." House swallowed hard, opening his eyes to search for the head surgeon. When he found him, he said, "If you can't save my leg, save my miserable life. Do you understand?"

The surgeon, apparently dumbfounded, merely nodded his head. Finally he said, "Dr. House, are you sure?"

"I'm not sure," House said, "Do what you can . . . for my leg. But don't . . . don't let me die. If you can help it that is."

The surgeon nodded again and then said. "Are you ready?"

House felt Cuddy squeeze his hand very tightly as he relaxed his head back onto the gurney. Unable to speak, he merely nodded his head.

The surgical staff moved closer again.

"Oh and Cuddy?" House said quietly. "Don't grip my hand so tight. If you cut off the circulation, they might have to amputate that too."

A few of the staff members chuckled. Cuddy relaxed her grip and succeeded in giving him a very watery smile.

"Okay Dr. House," the anesthesiologist said. "Let's try this one more time shall we? Once I put this over your nose and mouth, I want you to breathe deeply and start counting backwards from ten. Okay?"

House took a deep breath and nodded. But when he felt the mask begin to clamp down, a cold fear gripped him and he tried to jerk his head away.

"Easy, easy," the doctor said motioning for a nurse to come help her hold House's head still. Speaking to the nurse, the doctor said, "He's more nervous now than he was before when . . ." and then she let the rest of her thought sift away like sand blown away by a strong wind.

Cuddy took one hand and gently touched his face. "Look at me House. I'm here. Just keep looking at me."

At her touch, House quieted almost immediately as the mask was held to his face.

"Remember to count backwards from ten Dr. House."

House's large blue eyes looked up at Cuddy. She felt herself tear up again at the raw fear she saw there and at something else. For it was there in his eyes she saw a love so strong, so all encompassing for her and her alone; a love so powerful that House would rather face the prospect of even more pain and mutilation rather than risk causing her even a tenth of the hurt he felt, that she had caused him.

House shuddered violently. Cuddy kept her hands on him, instinctively trying to calm the tremble she felt beneath her left hand still holding his fingers and through her right that was now gently stroking his forehead.

"Ten," House said gasping. He hadn't even realized he was holding his breath, unintentionally fighting the anesthesia.

"I'm here House. I won't leave you," Cuddy said almost in a whisper.

"Nine," he said. For a moment, he looked past Cuddy to the observation balcony. Wilson moved forward into the light. A sad smile crossed his handsome features as he put his right hand up to the glass. House blinked his eyes in recognition and then he looked back at Cuddy and the rest of the room, the rest of the world all fell away from him leaving nothing but her, only her.

"Breathe deeply Dr. House. Yes, that's right. Better," said the doctor still holding the mask tightly to House's nose and mouth.

"Eight . . . Cuddy?"

"Yes House. Yes my love."

"I'm . . . afraid," he said slowly. The nurse holding his head stepped away as the anesthesia began to take effect. His head had stopped jerking and was now only twitching in fear.

"Keep counting down please Dr. House."

"Please," House said. He was slipping beneath the ether now, falling down, sliding under.

"Count."

"Sev . . . en . . . Please . . . ," he said again.

"Please what?" Cuddy asked. "I'm here House."

"Please . . . don't . . ."

House didn't realize he was still speaking much less who he was speaking to. It could have been Cuddy. It could have been his father. It could have been his pain. It could have been life in general.

"Don't . . . hurt me . . . anymore." And with a last groan, House let the darkness take him.

_A/N: This may very well be the end of this story. Have not decided as yet._


End file.
